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“That’s not St Elmo’s Fire,,,”

You are correct. I have seen St Elmo’s Fire and that’s not it.

You are correct. I have seen St Elmo’s Fire and that’s not it.

By any chance are you aware of any good photography of it? I've never seen a photo of anything like that pine tree lighting up before the lightning started; the best I can do is show people pictures of corona discharge and tell them "red-purple version of that, off every needle, and dialed to 11". It remains both the most beautiful and most terrifying thing I've ever seen (it preceded a 25 minute barrage of groundstrokes that wrecked fully half the trees in the area) and I suspect it will retain the "most beautiful thing I've seen" title until my death.

I just wish there were better photography of it to share with others... I was too busy fleeing/dragging the grad student I was with to safety to take pictures of the event I saw...