Forget that “dark and stormy night” idea. Today in Tübingen it was a bright and stormy afternoon.

Twice.

Here’s what happened. A bright sun came out, with sunshine so bright I needed sunglasses. The skies were bright blue and dotted with dark clouds.  Pouring rain with huge droplets came streaming down.

You may have read the sentences in that last paragraph and thought that I was describing things that happened one-after-another.  But no: everything happened simultaneously.  I was walking around under blue skies and sunny weather early this afternoon and suddenly the rain started. But the sky in my area was still bright blue.  There were a few clouds that had moved in, of course, but overall it was sunny – so sunny that needed my sunglasses as I walked around under an umbrella during the rain shower. It was that bright during the storm. Odd.

Then the rain stopped, and the clouds went away, leaving blue skies and the sunshine.

A few hours later I was at home, and could see that outside the skies had become slightly cloudy – a mix of blue sky and clouds. The sun was glinting off the roofs across the street, though, so it wasn’t that dark.  At some point, I thought heard someone dragging something along the street.  For several minutes. But then I thought to myself, hang on, I think that’s thunder! But when I glanced across the street, the sunlight was still bright on those roofs. But a moment later, I realized that I was also starting to rain starting to bounce off those gleaming rooftops. The rain droplets were huge for about 30 seconds, as I ran to get my camera. By the time I snapped the photos in the gallery below, the rain was still coming down strong, but with drops that were more normal size. The sunshine remained throughout the storm. I found the mix of sun, thunder, rain and blue skies to be very, very odd.

See what you think.