Chicago: photo and movie

May 29, 2013 • 4:27 am

Last night we had a powerful thunderstorm—the kind of pyrotechnic show one sees only in the Midwest. Cars were inundated trying to cross flooded dips in the road, basements were flooded, and there was thunder for hours. Here’s a short clip from my crib. It starts by pointing at downtown Chicago, which is obscured by rain and mist, and then pans over to Lake Michigan.

And when the storm cleared this morning, the sunrise turned the buildings golden against the background of a gray sky. This is Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago:


Rockefeller chapel

13 thoughts on “Chicago: photo and movie”

  1. “…the kind of pyrotechnic show one sees only in the Midwest.”

    Gotta agree. I grew up in rural Iowa and have since lived in several other regions of the US as well as in Central America. I have never seen lightning storms like those I experienced in Iowa.

    As a teenager I remember lying in bed at night trying to count lightning flashes — they came as fast as I could count.

    I assume it has something to do with topography.

    1. We don’t have any topography. 😉

      I think it has more to do with being situated at the confluence of all that lovely tropical moisture from the Gulf, and the cool Canadian high pressure systems, being led by the jet stream. Or maybe it’s just the way God planned it.

      1. “We don’t have any topography.”

        True story: one day I biked for 70 miles in central Illinois and the highest hills I climbed were highway overpasses.

  2. Meanwhile….

    A screw came loose on a water pipe on the second floor of the local hospital flooding that level and collapsing the ceiling of the floor below. The drop in pressure in the pipe triggered the back-up pumps to spring into action resulting in further flooding. Patients were evacuated on shutes set up in the stairwell because the flooding caused the lifts to malfunction.

    Everyone’s got problems…

  3. I can’t make that video work. I love thunderstorms, we used to have marvelous ones when I lived in Taiwan, typhoons too of course.

  4. Am I the only one who can’t play that video? Look at you, all artsy and stuff, with your “panning”. Here on the north side, we missed the bulk of the storm, but lucky you. I love thunderstorms. Plenty more where that came from, though.

  5. Hope the thieving squirrels you are servant to & the “botany” ducks are all OK !

    1. Well, that’s damned god interesting. It appears that something, maybe jebus, gets scraped across the windshield with enough force to create a flash of fire at 2:07. It leaves behind a black streak that could consist of dried up old jesus whinge.

  8. I like that picture, daytime at the top and nighttime at the bottom. I wonder what the red topped contraption(s) is/are, sitting just behind the tree with the do not feed the squirrels sign attached?

    1. It’s a 4×4 “pickup”-style truck with chrome bullbars [if that’s the term] on the front

      It might be open cab, but there’s a tree in the way so can’t be sure

    2. It’s a groundskeeper’s vehicle by the look of it. I can read the 4×4 on the side, but not the manufacturer.

      That was a very productive lightning storm. They are rather rare here on the north wet coast, perhaps half a dozen a year.

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