One way to tell if the lightning was about to strike THAT close to you is if the hair on your body begins to stand on end ( like you have goosebumps) before the strike even occurs. That's when you know it was way to close for comfort. We had a nice storm by us the other day... and naturally i was standing in front of the large sliding glass doors that has nice think metal bars in front of it when a bolt of lightning struck close enough that there was little time delay between flash and sound. I heard tons of car alarms and kids crying after that (mind you after i jumped back about 30 feet).
