Holy crap, this is incredible. Massive thunderstorms are rare in California's Bay Area. Rarer, still, are epic lightning displays like the one witnessed by area residents last night (meteorologists say last night's storm dished out a record-shattering 750 strikes).
Rarest of all, however, are scenes like the one featured up top, where a mindblowing eight lightning bolts can be seen thrashing the iconic Bay Bridge. If the apocalypse comes by way of thunderstorm, something tells us there's a good chance it'll look a lot like this.
It's the kind of photograph you get when you cross Roland Emmerich-style weather with lucky camerawork. According to amateur photographer Phil McGrew, who captured the photo through his apartment window, his camera was set on a long exposure of just twenty seconds when these bolts came down from on high.
Eight bolts. One bridge. Twenty second time window.
"I wasn't brave enough to go outside," McGrew explained, "so I just set it up next to the window and watched."
"You couldn't see much by just looking through the window, it was very foggy... When I looked at my camera, I had a few that were just dark, and then some were very bright where I had just missed the strikes. Then I saw this one, it was incredible." [Phil McGrew | SF Chronicle | Daily Mail]