I miss storms, I can't think of many more beautiful and awe inspiring spectacles than being in the moutain (in a nice cosy chalet obviously...) and watch a monster storm rage over the peaks. The atmosphere the day after is also "different", the mist slowly moving away, the air as clean as it gets...

Know what you mean ! Warm evening, on the terrace, a bottle (or two) of local wine and Pink Floyd (Dark Side of The Moon), on the stereo while we watch the lightning. Magic !

Tangerine Dream and a fat spliff back then but nowadays it would probably be a single malt (although TD remains)

Strangely influenced by the Mary Whitehouse Experience
I find myself overcome with the urge to say...

"You see those there hailstones.....that's your dandruff that is!"

that's actually true, in the Guinness book of records too (online version)

Climate is changing, sure, but not so those of us with three score and ten life expectency would notice. It take millions of years and we've been recording weather for a couple of hundred and solar activity even less. Statistically, we can't even start to guess what's happening, the sample is too small.

We had similar but considerably smaller ones in Rapperswil around same time - I was on me bike in full gear and it still hurt. It only lasted about 5 minutes - two of my mates had to have their cars fixed - dents on the roof.

wouldn't that be a fantastic excuse to carry on as we were, since you and I both won't live by the time it turns out we might have an impact after all?

you sound a bit like a policitician - short term success instead of long term sustainability.

carry on.

Yes, true. There is some evidence though that the Mayans took an interest in Solar cycles, if so then the 'sample' would be a bit bigger: Did the Mayans know something our current science doesn't?

You completely missed the point there - climate change takes millions of years - modern humans have only been around 130,000 years. If we had recorded all climate related data in that period it would still be a sample size less than that required to state what will happen in the few million years. It is more likely that our species will have died out due to self destruction or some dramatic event (like Yellowstone Park erupting) than through climate change.

so you don't believe that with human interference, we could make the ozonschicht disappear quick enough to make Australians wear 50+ sun blockers - or are you saying that this would have happened anyway, without our "help".

I strongly disagree with this statement - I do believe that humans are very capable of polluting bad enough to trigger a climate change.

The best thing about all these storms is watching them with the
Alps in the background ,it makes them more exiting .
And another thing is that even though we have had some tremendous storms where we live we have never lost our electric !