Many years ago I was serving as a chaperone with a delegation of youth from Oregon and Idaho who were attending the General Synod of the United Church of Christ being held in Texas. The event involved staying in a downtown hotel and walking back and forth between the hotel and the convention center where the event was being held. Together with other adults I was responsible for the safety of the youth. On of the challenges of the event was keeping track of all of the youth to make sure that they stayed together and no one was lost or left behind. I was constantly going through the list of participants in my delegation to make sure that everyone was where they were supposed to be. One evening I was encouraging the youth to rush to get inside because an intense thunderstorm was about to occur.

I had some experience with thunderstorms on the prairie. I had served congregations in Southwestern North Dakota for seven years. I had seen a tornado descend from a cloud not far from where I was located. I knew to take shelter and be careful about wind and hail and heavy rain. I understood the dangers of intense lightning storms. The youth in my delegation, however, had never seen a cumulonimbus cloud that loomed over 40,000 feet high. The dark color of the cloud was amazing to them. And when the rain let loose the intensity of the torrent was something totally new.

I was rushing the youth under the covered entryway of the hotel and trying to get them to go inside. They were lingering and awestruck by the power of the storm.

After assuring the safety of the youth and making sure that everyone was accounted for, I reflected on the contrast of our reactions to the storm. I had been worried and a bit short with the youth. They had been amazed and awestruck and reluctant to respond to my somewhat fearful urgings to take cover.

At the time we were living in Boise, Idaho where I used to speak of the wimpy thunderstorms that came to the area. Boise doesn’t get the kind of thunderstorms that occur on the open prairies. The clouds simply don’t have the time to form. It practically never hails. When a storm is accompanied by microbursts and intense wind, the area is small and the winds are nowhere near as powerful as occur in other locations. I joked that not only were the thunderstorms wimpy, so were the trees, which because strong winds were rare, would drop branches in what seemed to me to be a mild burst of wind. Prior to living in Boise I didn’t understand that it would be possible to miss the wind, but having grown up and lived in windy places all of my life prior to our time there, I found the air to be frequently stale and stagnant and longed for windy days.

Where we now live we get wind. There is often an onshore wind blowing in from the Salish Sea. While we get foggy mornings, especially in the late fall and winter, we also get our share of clear skies. Our winters, however, are filled with gray days and frequent rain showers.

But we don’t live in thunderstorm country.

The forecast called for a line of thunderstorms to pass over our area in the early hours of this morning. An upper level low pressure system off the Pacific Northwest coast triggered rain showers and thunderstorms. The forecasters called for lightning, heavy rainfall and blustery winds. They warned of damaging winds, downed trees and local power outages.

I have lived here long enough to dismiss the warnings of the weather forecasters. I knew that we weren’t going to see a towering thunderhead like those that roll across the prairies. I noted that the forecasters were noting that the last time a band of thunderstorms swept the area was 2017. Thunderstorms every seven years? Now that is different from living in the Dakotas.

So far, the thunderstorms have been as wimpy as those I experienced in southwestern Idaho years ago. I think I heard one crack of thunder. The rainfall on our skylight was moderate for a few minutes, but we have seen much heavier rainfall with other weather systems.

I think that thunderstorms in the forecast sound here really is a prediction of spotty showers that drop rain off and on in small areas. It could be one of those days when we use every speed of the variable windshield wipers on our car as we drive to church this morning. I doubt that rain will disrupt any of our plans for the day though we may end up taking our rain jackets with us when we head out.

Someone warned me that we would need to get used to replacing the windshield wipers on our cars more frequently living where it rains more often, but so far that hasn’t been our experience. I think that windshield wipers deteriorate more from sitting outside in the sun than from being used in the rain. Because we have a garage for our car our wipers seem to last just fine. I think we’re on our second set since moving here nearly four years ago.

The real dangers posed by thunder showers probably will be more evident farther east than they are out here on the coast. The Cascades have had lower than normal rainfall this summer and dry conditions have spawned several wildfires. Lightning strikes could be responsible for additional fires, though increased humidity and rainfall that accompanies there storms might dampen fires that are ignited.

I don’t mean to ignore the warnings of forecasters and I seek to be prudent and sensible when it comes to the weather, but we don’t often have to plan our activities around the weather. We can go walking in the rain. We can drive on the roads in the rain. We can go about our lives in the rain.

And once in a while we can take a trip to the midwest and experience the awe of a true prairie thunderstorm. We won’t get that by staying at home.