lightening and thunder and hail, oh my

We are having some crazy weather at the moment.  Lots of thunder and lightening.  You knwo how you are supposed to count after the lightening to know how far away it is?  Well this im mostly impossible.  there is little to no time difference, meaning the lightening is at my house.  Tom even ran outside to make sure there were no trees on fire.  While he was out there it started raining really hard.  Then i realized it was actually hail.  not giant hail, but big, and it built up on the porch quite a bit.  Let me tell you, hail is really loud on a metal roof.  poor Shakespear is not so happy,  he is hiding behind the couch.