Thunder and lightning are not typical on Vashon Island. This Island, lying in the waters of Puget Sound in Washington State with Seattle on the mainland to the north and Tacoma to the south, is subject to rain certainly, lots of rain, but rarely lightning. Besides, Vashon Island is home to lots of one-hundred-plus-foot Douglas Fir and Hemlock trees, very few of which show the signs of meeting up with a wood shattering lightning bolt.
On a day early this Fall, while I was driving on the east side of the Island, I looked over toward the Cascade Mountain Range coming into view. At once I notice the sky is broadcasting a clear warning. On this otherwise sunny and clear day, the sky now carried a dark blue, an almost jet black, streak of cloud layered neatly alongside of the typical puffy popcorn white rain clouds. I stop my pick-up truck, and reach for my camera.
An expanse of sea water in Puget Sound separates us from Seattle, Mount Rainer and the Cascade Mountain Range to the east. Normally, only a 20 minute ferry boat ride is needed to get you across to the mainland, but if the wind is up and the swell grows so that the top of each crest is blown into fans of spray, well, it can be a bumpy ride. The scene now before me out across this water looks threatening, like the imminent start of a 20 knot blow. But, oddly when I get out of my truck I notice that the air is nearly calm. Even the intense blue black band of color in the sky appears to stand still, gathering in readiness.
This summer on Vashon Island was truly wonderful. For us in this northwest reach of the lower forty-eight states, a great summer means not much rain fell and that lots of sun made it through the clouds to warm us up. But, this is September now and the sky that I am looking at is a reminder of the storms to come; the cold rain, the winter ice and the snow. A couple of men, fishing out on the nearby dock, seem to sense the foreboding presence of this blue black filling in those otherwise familiar white clouds. I could almost feel each of them in turn make an accessing glance up from their fishing lines to the sky, and gauge the likely danger posed by this darkening cloud. The men return to fishing while I start to photograph this sky.
As I start to take photographs, a sail boat tied to a nearby anchor buoy in the water just off shore from me, begins to ride the swell as the sky above begins to move closer to shore. In a moment, almost unperceptively, the cloud ceiling lowers toward the water. Suddenly, a pinpoint of bright sunlight flashes down from the sky onto the water, and right there a terribly small, a tiny, tiny little rainbow appears. It makes a direct hit amidships as the little rainbow delicately hovers over the rocking sail boat at anchor. The tiny little rainbow lingeres only briefly, and then vanishes. Further off shore, the lightening now begins its’ dance over the water. We watched the now fast moving storm heading away further north. And, only now do we begin to hear the thunder roll, trumpeting the certain arrival of Fall.
Oh, I also took a photograph. Best regards, lorikay.
A CHANCE MEETING WITH A TINY STORM SURPRISE