I always think of the thunderstorms as more of a feature than a design flaw. I love the feel of the front coming through. Watching the gray clouds coming, feeling the pressure change, and the wind freshen. Feeling the moisture, then the first huge drops of rain and then in a couple of minutes, if you haven't made it to shelter, the line of rain arrives in earnest. Rain so thick you can't see ten feet.

I love laying back with a close friend and listening to the storm. The whine and whistle of the wind, lashings and rattle of the rain, and bluster of the lightning and thunder as the lines of thunderstorms approach and overtake us, and then, after a time, moving off. Leaving the air tingling and alive, everything washed and clean.

Thunderstorms are, IMO, vastly superior to snow and ice. Ice that locks the world away and makes the roads and sidewalks into crippling and lethal skating rinks. Snow that is miserably in its useless cold and sodden wetness. That seeps into the bones and the spirit, wet, smothering, and in a few days, becomes clots of ice in soiled shades of brown and gray.

With thunderstorms they come and go. Good or bad it is over in an hour or two. Often just a few minutes. With snow and ice it is months of miserable cold, and weeks of ice that wears you down. After a few weeks of gray miserable weather felonious assaults, domestic violence, and suicides go up.

Thunderstorms are like drive-by shootings. Mostly it is a big noise and you brush yourself off. Winter with snow and ice is like trench warfare. Knee-deep in mud you hunker down and dread having to raise your head up for fear of being assaulted by the sleet and wind. All you can do is hunker down in your bunker and hope the weather changes before you give up and eat your gun.

Tornadoes are indiscriminate. North or South. East or West. just about everywhere you get strong fronts and lateral shearing winds you get them. You hang tough, as best you can, and it either ruins your day or it doesn't.