Sunsets and Storms

There are two natural phenomena I miss the most about living near the Johannesburg area of South Africa: the sunsets and the thunderstorms.  Neither can be adequately described with words or with photos.  Hopefully we'll be fortunate enough to see a particularly good depiction of these during our few days' visit in December.

As a child I was told the sunsets are so much more vivid here because of the gold mining.  The activity of hauling innumerable tons of rock out of the ground, crushing it and sifting out the gold results in an enormous amount of dust in the atmosphere which gives the sunlight even more particles to bounce off of as the sun sinks low at the end of the day.

Sunset over the Nelson Mandela Bridge

The high altitude and fantastic early summer weather in this part of the country come together to create some of the most spectacular thunderstorms in the world.  With dramatic rolling storm clouds, deafening claps of thunder, an unrivalled pyrotechnic lightning show and thick, driving rain, the best thing to do in one of these storms is to sit back and enjoy the experience.  The storms are usually dramatic, intense and over in about half an hour.

Three bolts of lightning strike near the Voortrekker Monument just outside Pretoria

Multiple strikes over the Johannesburg city skyline at night

Johannesburg thunderstorm

The Jo'burg skyline against purple storm skies

Lightning jumps from cloud to cloud north of Johannesburg

The sun sets during a storm in Magaliesburg

An earlier lightning strike started a grass fire but the storm rages on in Magaliesburg