298 Thunderstorm over sonorous rural woodland (warning – sudden shock thunderclaps)

Full Episode description

Last month on the evening of 26 May a huge lightning storm centred over a remote wooded area on the Leicestershire-Rutland border where we had left the Lento box alone to record. From where we were staying about three quarters of a mile away we could see fork lightning. We were worried that our equipment might not survive.

In our last episode (297) we shared the hour before the tumult began. Now in episode 298, we’re sharing a 92 minute segment of what it sounded like to be within the uninhabited forest as the storm passed directly overhead*.

When we were in the woodland looking for a good spot for the mics, the sky was pure blue and the sun was shining down brightly. Soft breezes flowed between the trees carrying scents of cow parsley and sweet smelling vegetation. A perfect early summer’s day. As we tied the Lento box to the trunk of an ash tree we had no hint of the weather to come. Torrential rain. Constant rolling thunder. Many overhead lightning strikes. A deluged forest streaming with water but whose resident wildlife rapidly springs back into song.

If you like the thrill of sudden shock thunderclaps this is probably the episode for you but as a general note to all listeners please be aware there are some extremely loud and sudden thunderclaps as well as various other sound quality glitches. This is definitely NOT sleep safe. Please treat this episode as being a sound witness to extreme weather conditions in a remote rural woodland. It’s also an opportunity to hear how wildlife sounds change during and after storm conditions.

* This episode contains some shock thunderclaps (most intense at 50m 22s). The soundscape integrity is temporarily degraded when the mics overload. There is also a physical problem with the box itself, a 30 minute long period where the torrential rain gathers high up in the tree and begins to stream down the trunk some of which drips on top of the box itself. The dripping does eventually ease off and the forest returns with all its deluged wateriness back to rich sonorous song.

** For obvious reasons we don’t have a photo of the storm in the forest. The image is from the same storm as it headed towards the area where the box was recording.