As I type this, thunder is booming and echoing off the mountains. Occasionally, an exceptionally magnificent crack will let loose, and the pictures hanging on my walls will rattle ever so slightly. A summer storm is brewing, complete with a dazzling light show.

I love thunderstorms now, but they’re a new appreciation. Much like beer was for me, they’ve been an acquired taste. It helps that they are now somewhat rare — or at least not the harrowing, several-times-a-week event I grew up enduring.

It also helps knowing we always need the moisture, so no matter what outdoor plans are spoiled, rain is a welcome sight.

But mostly I can enjoy them now because the threat is limited. In all the years I’ve lived in Park City, I have yet to run to the basement in the middle of the night to seek shelter. This is particularly helpful considering I don’t have a basement.

Having grown up in the Midwest, thunderstorms were never really welcomed. They were tolerated. Accepted as hazardous part of life in the flatlands. They often spawned tornados. I don’t remember a single summer where a full month went by and my family didn’t awake to sirens, scramble to gather pets, scream in dread that no one could catch the cat and rush down the stairs to take shelter in a windowless corner of the basement.

“The Panic Room” is what my sisters and I called this tiny little shelter under the stairs. Mostly because we always dove into it in a frenzied, middle-of-the-night panic. Just like homes in Park City are adorned with heat tape along the gutters, homes in Nebraska all come with some type of designated storm shelter. They’re as essential as a roof. In a way, homebuilders in Nebraska were the original FEMA.

My parents had a safe in this little shelter. In it they kept an emergency credit card, a little cash, and copies of important documents that would be helpful, should the originals be blown away. They also kept bottled water, dog food, and unexplainably, canned corn. Yes, we lived in Nebraska, but my sisters and I felt pretty strongly that if our house was going to be blown away, we should at least have more enticing options for emergency nourishment. We begged for powdered doughnuts and candy bars with every trip to the grocery store.

While we never did talk either parent into our desired food selection, we also never had to actually use any of the disaster reserves. Every time a tornado ripped through our town, it luckily bypassed our house.

I spent my first 18 years of life fearing Mother Nature’s wrath by force. (I was sort of forced to live where my parents did.) But then, as unexplainably as canned corn in a storm shelter, I tacked on another four years of tornado survival skills by choice. I chose to attend college in Texas, where jumbotrons, cowboy hats and hair aren’t the only things that come in an usually large size. The tornados were also bigger in Texas.

I survived my first F5 tornado on a Saturday night a few weeks into my freshman year, when I and several other tipsy coeds had to seek shelter in the basement of a frat house. Hours after the storm passed we found the keg over a mile away, in a tree.

Given my first couple decades of life, it took me a long time to appreciate a graying sky and rumble of thunder. I spent so much time associating those sights and sounds with danger, I never considered they could be pleasant.

Now, with each summer storm, I find myself gravitating outside, under my porch awning, soaking it up. Loving every drop of rain, every flash of light, every roar from the sky. Never worried the winds will uproot the aspen trees in my yard or carry away my home.

It’s a shame our summers are so short here. All too soon, any moisture falling from the sky will be white, and it will be too cold to be outside in my pajamas watching a storm.

I have no idea how August came so quickly. The tomatoes I planted in June don’t even have a hint of orange on them yet, and, if history is any indication, a frost can’t be too far off. They’re in a head-to-head battle with the calendar.

I have a list of summer traditions I haven’t checked off yet. I need to ride the Crest Trail, camp in the Uintas, climb Mt. Timpanogos and float the Provo River all in the next 20-30 days. Before the first fall freeze kills the abundant wildflowers that make these outings even more spectacular.

Summer seems to have gotten away from me this year. While they always go too fast, this one seems to have moved at breakneck speed.

But at least I can be thankful I didn’t waste any of it huddled in a corner of the basement.

Amy Roberts is a longtime Park City resident, freelance writer and the proud owner of two ill-behaved rescue dogs, Boston and Stanley.