October night thunderstorm & heavy showers

A night sequence of heavy to torrential showers, including a brief thunderstorm, the latter being still more torrential (real pandemonium!).

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

I made this recording through the night of 18–19 October 2022.

The events are presented in original order, with uneventful interludes each reduced to a useful short length, and all the more intrusive city sounds cut out, though with some flexibility in order to retain as much as possible of the soundscape that I did want. Relatively gentle gusts of wind become apparent during interludes, blowing through the trees as they chase around among the houses.

The sequence is as follows:

1. Very heavy shower.

2. Brief torrential shower.

3. Relatively short (fast-moving) thunderstorm, still more torrential, from first grumbling murmur that I could pick out. None of the lightning was overhead; the centre of the line of storm (moving S. to N., along its axis) passing-by a bit west of here. Presumably for that reason, the thunder gives us no big dramatics; the latter may well still have been happening, but a bit further west.

4. Two brief torrential showers, apparently with a scattering of hailstones

5. Thundery shower, not so torrential.

That final thundery shower has more background traffic noise, as by then it's late in the small hours, and some bleary-eyed motorists are already going to work.

For those wanting the thunderstorm in a smaller download, my next upload here is just that — though I myself find that particular storm most effective when heard in context, as part of the whole sequence.

Advisory:
To hear this to best effect you need high-grade headphones, and to have the volume setting about 6dB above a sensible normal level for a realistic rendition of symphonic orchestral music. That's a doubling of the sound level.

Late afternoon thundery shower clouds with spread-out anvil tops, photographed on 1 November 2022; looking SW from my living room — almost the same view as from my bedroom, where the recorder was.

Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested Windcut furry windshields (custom design), and it was placed on a Velbon Mini tripod with full centre column extension on my bedroom window sill, 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 windshields, and to compensate for 'alcove resonance' in the bass.

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