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bizarre weather - your experiences

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Renesis

Mon Mar 22 2010, 02:43PM

Registered Member #2028 Joined: Mon Mar 16 2009, 08:13PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 319

lpfthings wrote ...

Craziest weather I have experienced was a positive lightning strike in my backyard, Was definitely a bolt from the blue!!

The hairs are standing up on my back now, those things are scary as hell. I hear that positive strikes can last for over a second, can you confirm this?

Dave Marshall

Mon Mar 22 2010, 04:32PM

Registered Member #16 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 02:22PM
Location: New Wilmington, PA
Posts: 554

They do not last for over a second continuously, but they can have multiple return strokes along the same path that may continue striking the same point for more than a second. The individual visible plasma channels dissipate and reform repeatedly, giving it a strobe effect, as with a normal lightning strike.

-Dave

Conundrum

Mon Mar 22 2010, 07:07PM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061

we had some "thundersnow" a while back that spawned multiple superbolts, damaged houses etc. also caused a few airborne anomalies according to a number of people.

I've personally seen a funnel cloud, sadly didn't get a picture though. Also had one really close lightning bolt (under half a mile away) causing a loud KZZERT noise about a second before the thunder.

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Tue Mar 23 2010, 01:21AM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

Rain in California!?!?!?! can you believe such an obsurdity!

We really need it too.

Chris Russell

Tue Mar 23 2010, 02:24AM

... not Russel!
Registered Member #1 Joined: Thu Jan 26 2006, 12:18AM
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Posts: 1052

My strangest weather experience was a bolt from the blue. I was 6 years old at the time, playing in the yard. It was a clear summer day, hardly a cloud in the sky. Without warning, there was an extremely, extremely loud bang. I looked up just in time to see the bolt dissipate. It struck the TV antenna on the roof of the house, with a long, lazy, zig-zagging bolt that appeared from my perspective to streak sideways across the sky, to the top of a cloud just barely peeking out from behind a nearby mountain.

The TV, incredibly, survived. An alarm-clock-radio upstairs never worked right again: some of the segments wouldn't light, some stayed lit all the time.

I remember a very strong, sharp, smell and taste in the air, quite hard to forget. It wasn't until years later that I learned about the characteristic smell of ozone and nitrogen oxides.

Arcstarter, you hear the same line around here, but it's "If you don't like the weather in Meadville, wait 10 minutes".

I still prefer "if you don't like the weather in New England, go back where you came from."

MinorityCarrier

Tue Mar 23 2010, 02:26AM

Registered Member #2123 Joined: Sat May 16 2009, 03:10AM
Location: Bend, Oregon
Posts: 312

Saturday it was in the 70's (F) and I was laying out in the back yard catching some sun. This morning it was snowing in my back yard.

Bend has strange weather anyway, at the east end of town where I live, the sun can be out. At the west end of town, which is at the edge of the cascades, it will be snowing.

Killa-X

Tue Mar 23 2010, 04:09AM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

Indeed I have. It was 60F all weak. Very high for this time of year. Saturday, 5" of snow. Such nice weather and then we get snow. But 60F isn't common in west Michigan in spring time. It usually snows from December to may. Usually no warm days!!!

Renesis

Tue Mar 23 2010, 11:36AM

Registered Member #2028 Joined: Mon Mar 16 2009, 08:13PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 319

Chris Russell wrote ...

My strangest weather experience was a bolt from the blue. I was 6 years old at the time, playing in the yard. It was a clear summer day, hardly a cloud in the sky. Without warning, there was an extremely, extremely loud bang. I looked up just in time to see the bolt dissipate. It struck the TV antenna on the roof of the house, with a long, lazy, zig-zagging bolt that appeared from my perspective to streak sideways across the sky, to the top of a cloud just barely peeking out from behind a nearby mountain.

That would most likely be one of the previously mentioned positive strikes, or "anvil lightning" as it is also known because it originates from the top part of the thundercloud, which seen from a distance looks like an anvil. They transfer some 7 times more energy than a normal lightning if my memory serves me right, and have a frightening tendency to travel horisontaly for many miles before striking ground.

If you're all interested in lightning stories i could tell you some of my fathers bisarre experiences. He has been a lineman for over 20 years, and so is often called out to repair something after a thunderstorm.

One day he was called out to inspect a privately owned dry transformer about the size of a regular pole pig, that had been shorted out during a thunderstorm the night before. Not only had the windings insulation failed, but a piece of the iron core about the size of my thumb had been vapourized. And the really strange thing about this is, the transformer stood inside a concrete buildning, and so did the generator feeding it, and the cable between them was buried almost a meter below ground the whole way.

Another night he was called out to replace a transformer feeding two houses in a remote area on the mountain. Shure enough the transformer was dead, but judging from the first house everything else was fine. But as they walked towards the other house they were shocked to see the cable going from the transformer and into the house was laying on the ground, cut up in uniform pieces roughly half a meter i length. Could that be the wavelength of a 50Hz current?
The wire going from his TV antenna was gone, but you could see where it used to be by following the trail of broken and charred boards. Where it went through the wall was a hole about 10cm in diameter. His TV set was pretty much a plastic box filled with broken glass, though some of the glass had made it all the way across the room. In the electrical closed there were nothing left, and every wire and wall outlet they could see had a black halo painted on the wall behind them. The man living there was in a state of shock and had to be taken to a doctor.

One of his colleages has even been struck by lightning, sort of. He was undressing, sitting on the floor in their van with his feet touching the ground, and my dad sat in the front seat. Then lightning struck the roof of their van, sending the current down his legs. The contraption of his muscles sendt him flying into the van, hitting a rack. He was banged up for a few days from hitting the rack, but his feet suffered no injuries. My father said that was the loudest bang he had ever heard, the sound was like a rifle being fired.

Dave Marshall

Tue Mar 23 2010, 03:17PM

Registered Member #16 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 02:22PM
Location: New Wilmington, PA
Posts: 554

Lightning is some awesome stuff. I've encountered any number of weird little facts and stories about it over ~15 years of chasing storms, and really, I'd rather photograph lightning over a tornado most any day.

You're correct Renesis, in the US the common term among weather geeks is "Anvil Crawlers". They typically stay under the horizontal element of a cumulonimbus, but have been documented numerous times traveling 30+ miles away from the cloud structure.

In August 2008 I photographed a particularly violent electrical storm in Georgia, USA that produced upwards of 90 strikes per minute (so rapid I had to just make marks on paper and count them afterward). Nearly all of the strikes were "Crawlers". Some of the better photos are available here. Hover your mouse over the images as you view them, as some have detailed descriptions. For an example of a positive bolt at long range, check out image #9. That bolt struck the ground nearly 15 miles from the updraft base of the storm.

I've been within 50' of a number of lightning strikes. In Georgia, electrical storms were common, and our yard was filled with 80' tall Loblolly pines that made spectacular lightning rods. They were struck almost every single time a storm moved through. One strike occurred on a quiet evening under a gentle shower, and had so much power that it tripped 5 of the 11 circuit breakers in the house, despite hitting an un-wired 30' aluminum antenna mast 80' from the house.

-Dave

Renesis

Tue Mar 23 2010, 04:14PM

Registered Member #2028 Joined: Mon Mar 16 2009, 08:13PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 319

Dave Marshall wrote ...

I've been within 50' of a number of lightning strikes.

I've read several places that prior to a close lightning strike you can witness your hair standing up from the intense electrical fields, tickling in your skin like touching a CRT TV, and even St. Elmos fire originating from branches and straws and such. I have yet to encounter any people who have experienced any of this i real life, and so im curious as to wether this is true or not. What are youre experiences?

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