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Matt Tomkins felt the charge sawing on the air and knew the lightning was right above him. The Canberra photographer has been chasing storms out of the capital and into "the middle of nowhere" for more than five years. But last night the biggest storm he's ever seen in the ACT unfolded right outside his front door. "I couldn't believe it, it was insane. I saw the lightning rolling in slowly over the Brindabellas, and then it was on top of me," he said. Retreating to his garage, Mr Tomkins captured the bolts striking the field across the road from his house in Dunlop. "I couldn't get it all, there were storm cells 180 degrees around me. I could hear those loud cracks." The storm came in the midst of a punishing heatwave, lashing Canberra from about 8pm Tuesday, and the territory's storm chasers have already dubbed it "the best Canberra has seen in years". About 10.17pm, a particularly powerful lightning strike set off a seismometer manned by researchers at the Australian National University. Associate professor Meghan Miller said it was particularly unusual that the echoes of thunder bouncing across Lake Burley Griffin were also recorded. Sitting on the damp lawns of Parliament House, photographer Theresa Hall was just about to go home empty-handed when huge bolts of lightning cut across the sky. "Within five minutes I was eaten alive by mosquitoes...and it was getting very windy," Ms Hall said. "I could tell it was going to be a big storm though. It sounded like a monster creeping up." As the light show became more fierce, Ms Hall said the storm sounded like it was "roaring". But, despite its apparent severity, a spokesman for the ACT Emergency Services Agency said SES crews were only called out to three jobs overnight, including a tree that split apart in Chisholm. Mr Tomkins said he had only seen one storm larger than Tuesday's and it "nearly killed [him]" when it bore down at Lake George about four years ago. "We'd chased it out of Canberra through the night...and there was only this little hut with a metal roof, and the lightning was striking on the hill across and behind me," he said. "I'm always the last one to call it a day. My girlfriend does worry about me out there. "To me, there's nothing more exciting than a storm. "Last night every now and then the strikes would stop and there would just be this negative charge building up in the air and you'd know something big was going to come down. "And then a massive bolt would hit the ground, they whited out my cameras, they were so powerful." Thursday will bring little relief at a forecast top of 33 degrees and more rain is likely for Friday as temperatures reach 34 degrees. During wilder shifts in Canberra's weather, emergency crews warn people to take care around trees as branches are more likely to fall. Send your best storm pictures to online@canberratimes.com.au

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