While inside her Vernon home Saturday night, Michelle Gregoire suddenly heard an amazing rumble from Mother Nature.
Seeing a storm approaching, Gregoire went out on her deck with her dog, Bowie, to watch for lightning. She had her iPhone 8 with her.
She had her phone on camera mode, and when she saw lightning she clicked her shutter.
The result? A spectacular photo of lightning appearing to come out of a hole in the sky and striking north of Vernon.
“I am not a photographer at all, I don’t even own a nice camera, just extremely lucky timing,” said Gregoire, who shared her photo with The Morning Star, which posted the picture to its Facebook page.
Since Saturday night, the photo has been viewed by more than 15,000 people and shared nearly 230 times.
READ MORE: “When thunder roars, go indoors’: How to keep safe before lightning strikes
“I perched my phone on the deck railing and hoped for the best,” said Gregoire, a self-employed IT tech. “I’ve never got a shot like that before. I’m amazed by what appears to be a portal opening up for that bolt. Nature is unreal.”
The North Okanagan storm Saturday may have resulted in a power outage in Coldstream (since restored) but that appears to be the only blip.
BC Hydro, on its website, shows no outages in the North Okanagan Sunday morning, and the B.C. Wildfire Service says there were six new lightning-strike fires Saturday, but none in the Kamloops Fire Centre region.
roger@vernonmorningstar.com
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