Natural Curiosities: The Positive Side of Negativity

When the first pellets of hail started pounding the trail in the High Sierra, I hustled to a nearby stack of boulders beneath a low stand of trees for shelter. I pulled a tangerine out of my pack while thunder roared, peeled it open with my thumbs, and munched on the sweet fruit. Bolts of lighting flashed in the distance. I don’t remember how long the storm lasted, but I remember the magnificent sweetness of the tangerine, the smell of the rain on the granite, and an almost electric haze as the sun broke through the dispersing clouds, brightening everything with a yellow glow. It was beautiful and it was thrilling, but also immensely peaceful. Despite spending months working in the High Sierra backcountry that summer, the serenity of that particular afternoon thunderstorm is what etched itself most clearly in my memory.

A branch of science called biometeorology might have an explanation for that. It’s the study of how atmospheric