I was flying cross country and my layover was in Chicago at Midway. I had deliberately chosen a window seat on the right side of the plane in case we carried out the approach from the lake in order to have a view of the city. Sure enough, we did approach from that direction. As we headed out to the lake, I could see some showers over the water. At the time, I thought they would not show up well on a photo but the motion of video would make them more conspicuous. Consequently, I started filming some video on my phone.
I was focused on the screen and initially didn’t notice that the showers I was watching were a lot smaller than their neighbors! There was a big storm just north of the city. It came into view on the phone and then I gave it a bit more focus. Sadly, the phone does not always pick up the lightning bolts. However, I think you will get the idea of how big a storm it was. I know someone who was at O’Hare during the storm and they describe the effect as pretty dramatic. From my location, everything was totally smooth!