Thunderstorms are a thing in Ontario, Eliza. I grew up in the Ottawa Valley, where the storm cells move southeast down the river to the spot where the valley narrow and the Rideau and Gatineau rivers enter the Ottawa -- not coincidentally, that's where the city is. When an air mass full of wind and rain hits the hot pocket sitting over the city, we all get the Earth-shattering KABOOM! Typically, it happens at about mid- to late afternoon, just as all the civil servants are going home from work, and ends shortly after supper with a glorious rainbow.

When my brothers and I were little, our mother did not want us to grow up with a fear of thunderstorms, so she would get us up to watch and comment on the donner and blitzen. "The angels are moving God's furniture," she would say. "Wow! That must have been the piano falling over!"