Snap, Crackle, Pop, T-dot 

Last night Toronto had yet another storm for the ages. I had a front row seat, but didn't see much between cooking supper, doing laundry and cowering behind the couch. Thankfully, Jon Simonassi was far braver and made this great video.



Despite having a view of CN Tower, I still didn't feel like craning my neck out into the storm to watch for lightning strikes (though, as the largest lightning rod this side of Chicago, it gets hit often). I did however catch a few amazing lightning shards hit the Lake. It's sort of wildly beautiful and frightening all at the same time. I suppose I should have been watching for funnel clouds as Toronto, along with much of the Golden Horseshoe (more like a Golden Barbecue this summer) was under an official tornado watch from Environment Canada. Some of the thunder claps were incredible. Completely deafening and um... pant soiling. No matter what your brain tells you, when you hear a sudden noise that loud, your heart goes immediately into "flight mode", making me wonder are there more heart attacks during thunderstorms? (Based on a quick Web search – more sleep apnea and asthma but no extra cardiac events.) I did notice something strange after the storm but I thought it might just be me. There seemed to be a sort of metallic smell, as though someone had just sanded a steel pipe with steel wool, if you know what I mean. Some people describe it as fresh but I would't put it that way. According to Nova, it's the smell of Ozone or O₃ which is abundant following an electrical storm.