Crazy Thunderstorm

Last night Andy and I woke up around 2am to the loudest thunder I have ever heard in my life. We went out on to the balcony to watch the most spectacular lightning completely light up the sky over Melbourne. The thunder was so loud, you could tell exactly when the storm was right above us and when it had travelled further inland (it seemed to come from the bay and work its way inland). 

We stayed up watching it for about half an hour and got a few pictures, but they don't do the enormity of the storm justice.

When we woke up this morning there were still passing thunderstorms. Of course the trains were a mess - I considered tweeting metrotrains but plenty of other people were already doing that for me:

I ended up calling a colleague who lives nearby who picked me up thankfully, as when I tried to journey plan my route it was saying it would take nearly 2 hours to get there. Public Transport Victoria has actually issued an apology today, saying it failed commuters. Obviously this was an extreme case today; it would be nice to get an apology from PTV every time it rains and it's trains are delayed! (Actually it would just be nicer if the trains could cope with heavy rain, seeing as this is a place where rain is pretty frequent)

Other people were without power, flights were all delayed this morning, and a house in Prahran was hit by the lightning and burnt down. Crazy.

Here's a video of the lightning from our balcony:

I found this video on Youtube which captures the storm quite well, and has some funny subtitles as an added bonus:

In true Melbourne fashion, the skies were clear and blue by the late afternoon.