My wife, sons and I lived for nearly 11 years on the Gulf Coast — where we were introduced to the most violent thunderstorms we’ve ever seen.

And my wife and I have said in our nearly 15 years in the Panhandle that our storms here just don’t quite measure up to what we saw and heard in Beaumont.

Until last night … maybe.

The storm Monday night was a beaut.

I awoke at 1:11 a.m. to intense flashes of light and sounds the likes of which I hadn’t heard since we headed north from the coast in early 1995. What was most intriguing was that the lightning was exploding directly over our house — with the lightning bursts and the thunderclaps occurring at the same instant.

That’s close, man.

I’m not yet ready to declare that we’ve seen a storm here that’s equal to what we experienced on the Gulf Coast. But last night’s event produced a photo finish.