Lightning

[Turtle]

mmmmm...interesting bit here, but they say don't quote them 'cuz of copyright. whatever. here's an interesting link on something new with lightning, but i didn't say so.

Lightning may have cooked dinner for early life - life - 13 July 2009 - New Scientist

[enorbet2]

I hope you don't mind two slightly connected stories at once. Many years ago I was living in a very small town in Western Colorado and in a nearby town's paper I read about four people who had just been released from the hospital having been struck by lightning on a relatively clear day while they laid on those aluminum and fabric lawn chairs and chaise lounges near a pool. The very next day I was to meet a candidate for a replacement 2nd guitar player for my band and it turned out to be the one who'd had his shoes blown off. We had to put off the audition for a few days until he got off crutches. He described how they could feel "the air go weird" just before it hit but in nowhere near enough time to react much beyond trying to get off the chairs. Everyone recovered in just a few days but were considered extremely lucky. I hired him.

A few months later, I was returning home, driving alone from a gig around 3:30 AM crossing section of high desert between Grand Junction and Delta and it was raining with increasing gusto and soon the lightning became so close and so bright that 1) I could not count any time between the strike and the thunder, and 2) It almost felt as if I could feel heat from the strikes that were really wide like hot ribbons (not "snaky") and coming so quick in succession, maybe one to three seconds apart that I had to slow down driving successively downshifting into first gear finally because my eyes couldn't recover between incredible blackness and searing white... I didn't want to outdrive my lights. I felt I had to keep driving though because once the hail reached over golf ball size I became very worried I was near a tornado due to the hail, lightning, and cacophony of wind that was trying to blow me off the road. It only lasted for about 4 miles, maybe a total of 20 minutes, but it was truly both exhilarating and frightening and obviously never to be forgotten.

BTW have any here seen the photos or shows of the various sprites above the clouds? Whoa! new phenomena!

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by enorbet2

I hope you don't mind two slightly connected stories at once. ...
BTW have any here seen the photos or shows of the various sprites above the clouds? Whoa! new phenomena!

don't mind at all; thanks for posting. :

we have a thread on sprites, though it's not much. >> sprites

another short thread on jets. >> http://hypography.com/forums/physics...ntic-jets.html

another thread on superlightning. >> Super Lightning??

some links are repeated in them, but i think each thread has a little something different.