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Who made Elias the Thunderer angry?  Lately, storms are raging all over Croatia, ripping trees from the ground, taking away roofs and even people. A little tornado that appeared in continental Croatia (near city Slatina) and recent hurricane storm accompanied by amazing thunder not seen in years in many places, tell us that "something weird" is in the air. Meteorologists say it's the hot and dry summer that's causing this, but folklore legends give us more interesting explanation: saint Elias the Thunderer is trying to kill the devil with a thunderbolt. According to the photographs in this text, it seems that the devil hid in Zagreb!
The story from folklore says that devil wanted to make God angry and so he tried to create a man, just like God did with Adam. But he failed to put life in it. So God made him alive and commanded: "Elias, get up and throw a thunder on your father (i.e. devil) where ever you find him." Since then Elias is searching all over, throwing thunderbolts in hope to kill the devil. This is just one of the many versions of the story, but they all agree that it is the battle between saint Elias (in fact, a slavic god Perun) and the devil (slavic god Voros). Although storms and thuder bring destruction, people are still attracted and charmed by them. Imagine, dark clouds on the horizon, sudden rush of wind, thunder and lightning, dark shrouds the ground, hectoliters of rain and after 20 minutes everything is quiet and back to normal. Who can stay cold-headed at a sight like that? If you like watching the sky and storms then besides "regular" lightnings like those on the photographs here, try to spot a so called "red sprites" that go from the cloudtop into the ionosphere. They were seen near Valpovo this summer, and the best way to see them is to look above the distant thunderstorm (100-200 km distant), when the sky is dark and clear. If you are lucky you might see "blue jets" and "elves", and before and after the storm look for wonderfull mamatus clouds. And get away from metal spikes and tall trees!
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