TUAW's Daily Mac App: Lightning!

Stormy weather, as long as we're not talking hurricanes or tornadoes, can be quite beautiful from a safe vantage point. Whether it's flashes of lightning dancing across the sky, or the rumbling claps of thunder that accompany them, there's something majestic about electrical storms.

Lightning! attempts to capture that visceral beauty. The app is simple, simulating the flashes of fork-and-sheet lightning to give you the sensation of seeing lightning through a window. If you've got your Mac hooked up to a large screen monitor or a TV, the effect is truly beautiful.

The storm intensity can be adjusted to your liking, from "intense" through "natural" and "calm." Lightning! will also showcase freeze frames, allowing you more than the glimpse you'd get in real life. A screen saver is included with your purchase, but must be downloaded separately from an "install screensaver" menu option.

For those worried about resources, Lightning! used less than 10 percent of CPU time on a 2011 MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, there's no option for audio effects to go along with the on-screen flashes for either the screensaver or the standard app. In other words, no rumbling thunder. But I've never been a fan of screensavers with sound tracks, so that's fine with me.

If you're a storm lover, and want something with a bit of a zap for a screensaver, then Lightning! is available from the Mac App Store for US$0.99.