Eliza, thank you for that posting. I couldn't ask my parents about the smell when their house was struck (and revealed why the northern peoples thought the god of thunder used a hammer, as the paving in the garden looked as if someone had been at it with a sledgehammer).

Ancient descriptions identify the smell as sulphur (presumably sulphur dioxide not bad eggs) which it can't do. I have long suspected that this is wrong. After the discovery of electricity, ozone becomes more usual, but I've never been able to find an actual witness.

Anyone know if ozone smells anything like SO2?