Yep, you live in a different world than I do, not many miles from you. It started raining at the time I went to bed and from my bedroom window, I see the back garden and a light stays on out there until the timer cuts it off. When I look out, I see the roof right below the window that is over the lower deck and see the whole garden. That roof was being pounded by very heavy rain and there was lightning and I could hear the pounding rain going on until I went to sleep.
I woke up at 3:30 hearing pounding rain and went downstairs to be sure everything was okay down there. In 2012, a critical piece inside my chimney fell and water came inside the living area after a six inch rain and I haven't trusted rain to stay outside since then. The chimney was fixed, of course, but I still remember that water in the house. I even put two water alarms around that chimney just in case...
Your 100% right, 10 miles is another world when it comes to thunderstorms.
What I call a hard rain is getting 3 or 4 inches in an hour.
Rain since midnight-
http://water.weather.gov/precip/