Since my first post I have been thinking about this subject a bit. In my time with the Forest Service (3 years) each April, May, June and a bit into July were thunderstorm season. Usually they were fast movers, maybe 10-20 minutes and then they would move on. A few times we got hit with longer lasting storms, sometimes lasting an hour.
Sometimes no lightning, others were incredible.
Remember the scene in Band of Brothers where they were getting shelled in the forest? I have seen lightning storms just like that, the thunder was one continuous roll and brilliant flashes all around.
Awe inspiring yet scary as hell.
A few years ago there was a guy on his crotch rocket riding down the highway and he got hit by lightning. DRT but it blew out about a 1 ft chunk of asphalt out. It always struck me that it blew out the pavement.

My mom swears she and a group of friends were chased by ball lightning when they were kids playing a baseball game. It sounds horrifying, like being chased by one of those loitering kamikaze drones.

I was up in the boulderfield above Chasm Lake at Longs Peak in a lightning storm.  Fucking horrifying.  Decades later.

Lightning strikes down, sideways and even going up, to ground and cliff strikes.  Hell's pinball game.

Maybe 18 years old, I was in my 3 rd story room in my parents house on the computer during a lazy rain storm. No thunder. We didn't have AC so I had these casement windows I could open at night. I had them open and a huge lightning strike hit outside in what seemed to be feet away. Sounded like a gunshot and had a bright light burst. Scared me pretty good, rang my ears badly and gave me a huge headache afterwards.

It flickered the computer screen as well.

Never did find where it hit.

I got new respect for lightning after that.

My brother and I were sitting on the front porch when a maple tree in the yard was struck by lightning. The wound to the tree looked the same as in the photo.  

My brother was actually struck by a piece of bark from the tree.  

It was indeed loud and bright.

That tree in my parents yard is still healthy and standing 45 years later.