At 4:00 AM Friday morning November 4th, 2011, as with many people on the east side of the Big Island, a sharp Ka-Boom of thunder and brilliant flashes of light abruptly woke me. I leapt out of bed and in the dark grabbed my camera and began filming the storm.

My home is three stories high with my bedroom -loft at the top above the ohia trees, from there I have a 360 degree view from ocean to mountain, with Cape Kumukahi and its lighthouse just to the northeast. (the lighthouse light & tower can be seen in lower left corner of the last flashes at the end of the video.

As I filmed off my decks on each floor, a serious set of thunder cells pilled one atop the other while the wind gusted up faster, the rains came harder (dumping six-inches here in ten hours!) and the sky lit with many-hued lightning flashes nearly continuously all to the sharp claps and heavy booms of rolling thunder.

This was not a short-lived event, lasting about three hours in all; though I think I slept through the early stages. The National Weather Service in Honolulu had the day before forecast for East Hawaii Island "A slight chance of thunder storms" ... I think the video footage tells the real story!

The 'chirping' sounds are the coqui frogs we now have on the island.

Aloha,
Leigh