Maybe this will make you feel better...

DSC_3090-Palmate Crop by FredMan, on Flickr

You should have heard my rants last winter  Aurora forecast is going nuts, I can see the lights over town when I'm driving to my usual spot, then not a peep for 2-3 hours until I'm halfway home again.

Sucks so much, don't it.

"It's now or never" comes to mind.

That's about par for the course.  Welcome to storm photography.  It's exponentially harder if you live in a hilly area.  

If you only knew how many times over the years I've driven out to a spot and the storm passed or just died out completely.  I think it's about a 10-20% success rate, and that's because I had pre-planned spots and knew the weather patterns.  I haven't gotten a single shot this year mainly due to scheduling.

You shouldn't need a 1.8 unless that's all you have, and I wouldn't use much of anything smaller than f8, which seems to be the sweet spot anyways.  Keep at it, eventually you'll get something.

I never tried it until a week or so ago.   There were storms to the south with quite a bit of lightening, so I gave it a try.  I didn't bother to set up a tripod. I manually focused, used the bulb setting, and steadied the camera against a pillar on my patio.  I just guessed and kept the shutter open for from 2 to 5 seconds.  I took about 15 shots, found 3 with lightening, and used the HDR merge in Lightroom.  Seemed to do OK for so little prep.