July long night thunderstorm with frequent lightning (full dynamic range)

Full dynamic range version! — A full long thunderstorm, with frequent lightning, a very long approach time and eventually two close earth strikes (upsetting the city seagulls!).  This storm's sequence is unusual, at least for here in Exeter, in that even quite early in the approach there was lightning dancing around in the sky, overhead at times, with its sound still being distant.

Rain started early in the proceedings, but was initially light, and didn't become at all heavy till the loudest part was already starting to pass away — and that passing-away was then relatively rapid, but followed by a more torrential shower with a bit more thunder, though more distant.

I worked out that the storm must have had a very drawn-out anvil top, which was facing forward, which in my 'sheltered' experience is unusual, for any anvil extension is usually at the rear of a storm, so that the most spectacular lightning display is seen as the storm recedes.

On this occasion even quite early in the approach, branches of lightning discharges were transiently coming overhead, but at that stage the cloud base would have been still a few miles away vertically, and so would still sound quite distant. It wasn't so spectacular to watch on this occasion, though, because there must have been a layer of lower cloud. Without that, I might have been able to see some 'anvil crawlers'.

Thunderstorms are quite a rarity in Exeter, so for me each such storm is a very special event.

I made this recording during the night of 18–19 July 2017, from my bedroom window in city centre, Exeter, Devon, UK. A thundery shower had come over from the WSW during the afternoon, which I didn't record because of all the city noise at that time of day. The evening weather forecast gave the general impression that the main thunderstorm risk had moved away from my area, but still with the risk of the odd possibly thundery shower during the night. The light breeze had veered from the SE quarter to NW, so I was pretty doubtful about the prospects of anything interesting coming over Exeter.

Then, as the evening progressed, little patches of altocumulus castellanus, which had been drifting to the SE, progressively built up far away in that direction, merging into an extensive cumulonimbus anvil, which persisted there as the lowering sun's rays progressively reddened it. Also, it looked suspiciously as though the breeze had started coming from E. or NE, which would suggest a potential for that big cumulonimbus to start heading this way.

It was thus a no-brainer for me to set the recorder running in my bedroom window when I went to bed. The storm came to my attention about 11.30 p.m., and, prior to editing, the part of the night's recording spanned by that storm from first murmurs to final dying grumbles was about 2½ hours, and even after editing out various disturbances it was only a little short of 2 hours.

This version of the recording has the full dynamic range — that is, it has not had reduction of any of its peaks.

Advisory:
To hear this to best effect you need high-grade headphones, and to have the volume setting about 15dB above a sensible normal level for a realistic rendition of symphonic orchestral music. To clarify, you need the volume set so that, in the opening, the background sound, with almost inaudible thunder murmurs, is clearly, but only just, audible — hoping that makes sense!

Thundery shower the preceding afternoon from my bedroom window, from where I made this recording

Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested Windcut furry windshields (custom design), and it was placed on a Hama Mini tripod (very small) raised up on some books on my bedroom window sill (BAD idea, as I'd found out the hard way a couple of months earlier!!), with the window as wide open as it would go.

Initial post-recording processing was to apply an EQ curve to compensate for muffling from the furry windshield, and to compensate for 'alcove resonance' in the bass. I used Audacity ('clip fix' function) to repair the three clipped peaks, and on this occasion that function worked really effectively.

Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thank you!