Earlier today we had a 'fast mover' come through with very little lead time, and I had been watching the radar very closely as I put in a 25 mile bike ride and was thinking about going sailing too. Well, the wind died, and I could see some weather building up to the west of my house, moving east, so instead of going sailing, I went to the grocery store.

30 minutes later, I was coming out of the store, and I looked to the west, and it was getting dark (at 4pm), so I knew someone was coming, but the winds were still calm, no far off thunder.

I get home, stow the groceries, and take the 4 dogs out back to pee and feed them...

That's when I heard the first CRACK/BOOM of some far off lightning. Still, no rain, no wind, so I hook the dogs up and get their water and go back in the house to get their food... that's when I hear the next BIG CRASH/BANG of some close in lightning... so I run out back and bring the dogs in, just as the first rain drops are starting to fall.

I get them all in and about 2 minutes later, all hell breaks loose!

I live in FL, we see thunderstorms almost every day in the summer, but this thing was HUGE! NOT your average thunderstorm! I look out back and the trees are laid over, the lake is black, with 5' white caps, the rain is coming down in sheets, sideways. Then a few more BIG lightning strikes, and KABOOM! the power goes out. The wind was HOWLING, like Hurricane noise, and when I looked out front, I could see broken tree branches blowing down the road, in 5" of water.

Well...I was very glad I had chosen to go to the grocery store, instead of out sailing!

Didn't last too long, only about 10 minutes, then it cleared up, I was very glad my boat was tied down in the back yard! Because it was rocking and rolling, even tied down. On the evening news, they were saying the town just to the south of us (Lake Placid) was getting hail.

But this started as just a small bunch of rain, looked pretty lame on the radar, and then it blew up very fast, becoming a HUGE thunderstorm, in the span of 30 minutes, probably what happened to those guys in Alabama.