Here are some of the pics I shot during the violent storms that affected Gascony on July 14 and 15 :

July 14, 2003

A nice cumulonimbus cloud appeared to the north-east at 11 p.m. The anvil's shape was hard to observe in the pale light of the rising moon. But this one-minute exposure reveals the thunderstorm under the starry sky, with the "W"-shaped Cassiopea to the left :

After some hesitations, I decided to move closer to the storm, but after driving only a few miles I realized that no more lightning activity was going on. Parked along a road that was built on a former Roman "highway", I waited a little. The night air was still so war and wet. Smells like a storm in order to come !

Effectively, silent clouds growed just upon my head, covering the whole sky in minutes only. I didn't have to wait long to observe new lightning activity, only a few miles away to the south-east. Forgeting how asleep I am (I started at 7:30 this morning to drive to the Cirque de Gavarnie !), I get the nice idea to put my camera on the ramparts of the old city of Lectoure.

Then serious things began ...

This perfect bolt hited a power line, and produced at least 3 shortcuts visible as dots of light looking like streetlights. The one to the right produced immediately after the strike a bright greenish flare that lasted one second.

Electric activity became really impressive. Help to my location close to the old stonehouses of Lectoure, I felt more secure than being isolated on the top of a hill (but that just illusion, lightning strikes everywhere; and, as Eraclite the Ephesian said, "Lightning rules the Universe" !!).

So I stayed to enjoy the show. And what a show !

It was a huge but localized and short-living storm. After some minutes of heavy rain, the cumulonimbus cloud loosed activity and started to dissipate, moving to the north. This allowed the Moon to reappear, and at the same moment low-power bolts crossed the loosing rain-curtain.

Rare picture where the moon and the bolt are side by side. Will there be an end to the marvel the sky is filling me with ?

July 15, 2003

A few pics of the city of Condom (pop. 7,400) threatened by an impressive thunderstorm. The pure, dry air helped to get great pictures :

You will soon discover some new images of the BIG wallcloud that roled over Gascony only two hours later.

To be continued ...