Cyprus is not known for extreme weather. During the winter season, we do get the occassional thunderstorm which have even lead to minor flooding in Larnaca and Nicosia. Though rare, these thunderstorms do put on a spectacular show with ample thunder and lightning to please the weather watchers and to scare the ones who have been brought up with a fear of the same. Yesterday night, the show was grand, with huge lightning strikes lasting for more than an hour. So, there was enough time for me to setup the camera and the tripod and take some lightning strike shots! If you want to know how to take photographs of lightning strikes, check out this post on my other blog.
Few years ago (in 2003), there was this big cloud buildup in Limassol. It looked like a big black flying saucer as the cloud had clear edges. it seems that such clouds give rise to Tornados and indeed, we had the best ever tornado strike (is this also called a strike) in recent history.
Almost all the tornados started off from the sea and moved inland. The one which moved over Omonia Avenue caused a lot of damage. It was so powerful that it even bent steel posts. Some shops, like the Karmi Fruit Market on the beach road were badly damaged. One passed just next to our building and it carried a garbage bin and crashed the bin onto the security cabin of our office. Vidhya was in our house at that time and i immediately called her and asked her to start taking photographs. She went out on the balcony and starting taking photos. As she was taking photos, she suddenly realised that it was getting very windy. Then she realised that a tornado from the right, which she didnt notice as she was taking photos towards the left was right on top of our house! She ran back inside the house 
Below are some of the photos taken with the Nikon coolpix 2500 , the one i had before i got the D70 SLR.
