Photograph by Storm Wolf / Flickr
I once heard this is called chain lightning, but I have never seen it again.
Yeah, but does this ball lightening keeps its word like Scarface.
I got nothing from all that...
I’ve seen that, too, where a bolt of lightning dissolves into a string of pearls. Very weird.
How could he not use the correct name: St. Elmo's Fire?
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I remember in them 60s I read an article about a rural road in Missouri where lights would dance way off down the road. You’d drive in that direction and there would be nothing there...no lights, no houses, no street lamps. Nothing. Always wanted to visit and see for myself, but never made it. The locals interviewed for the article were really spooked. Best guess was swamp gas.
I experienced ball lightening. I was asleep in my second floor room, and a bright flash and boom woke me up. A ball of lightening rolled in through the window snapping and popping, then dissapated.
Checking the next day, the meter base below my window was scorched.
Didn’t understand it until decades later when I read about it in readers digest.
There are a surprising number of crude amateur videos of these things on Youtube. The ubiquity of camera/phones and billions of people on the planet has given us rare glipses of phenomena that most of us would never witness firsthand.
I depend upon my galpal for ball lightning... ;)
I was stopped at an intersection in my PU Trk and lightning struck the power pole 5 feet from the passenger side. The lightning glanced off and hit the middle of the intersection and formed a perfect ball and went up the power pole on the far corner. WOW! Talk about loud and bright. Scared the poop out of me!
Ball lightning.....plasma effects
During an earthquake I saw flashes of blue light. I assumed it was arcing transformers nearby because the power also went off. But the transformers were ok.
Named for the patron Saint of sailors, it’s also called St. Elmo’s Fire.
I saw it several times on the railings and flight deck of the aircraft carrier I served on from ‘60-’62.
I’ve seen ball lightning twice.
The first time it was about 3am just south of Orlando on the turnpike. A bright blue/white ball appeared 50 ft above the road and drifted downward very slowly. It was like a slow mo flare. Then it just disappeared. It was not raining, but there is lots of heat lightning at night there.
The second time was around 5pm and I was stuck in traffic in Fort Lauderdale - 595 near i75. It was that moment before a storm breaks lose down there. This one was very similar but much bigger. When it popped out of existence, the rain started almost immediately.
That second time I was looking in every car around me trying to make eye contact with someone else who saw it. I don’t know how they didn’t see it or didn’t care.
That video is really cool!
Try explaining that to the Chief ;-(
Ed
I have seen ball lightning once. It was really cool. It floated towards the tree tops and stayed there. I didn’t stay around long enough to see it dissipate. I wish I had.
My mom and I saw one circa 1966. The thing came down from the sky, bounced about twice and then went back up into the sky. It was amazing! It’s hard to describe except that of an electrical doughnut with jagged but perfectly organized edges, and super fast with a bouncing sound on the street.
We asked each other,’Did you see that!’
Amazing!