I saw 2 flashes of green lightening in a Texas thunderstorm one night. That is very eiry sight! Never heard any explanation for it.
While I watched, it was constant, like the flashbulbs at god's last media event, for over an hour. My wife thought there was something wrong with our eyes, but I'm pretty sure it's due to the amount of water in the air.
Q. During our recent spectacular lightning show I noticed that sometimes there was a greenish tint to the lightning. Can you explain this? Lucy Baldwin - Palo Alto
A. Clouds often take on a greenish hue before severe storms, but this is most often associated with hail. Hail is usually part of a thunderstorm. These tall, dense cumulonimbus clouds often block most of the sunlight, so the greenish tint may be a reflection of Earth's green foliage. However, the cause of the green tint has not been proven conclusively.
I think my husband and I saw that once. We were driving home one night and there was green light that kind of expanded out and up, and then it was gone. We thought an explosion or a plane crash but nothing happened.
Re: Green Lightning....
Found this at http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/oct98/908234034.Es.r.html
Here's what Jaff Waldstreicher, Science and Operations Officer for the Binghamton, NY NWS Office told me:
"On rare occasion, the sky can appear to have a greenish tinge during a thunderstorm. That is, in most if not all cases, an excellent sign that the storm contains hail, and probably large hail. The greenish color is caused by light (either sunlight, or in some instances the light of a lightning flash), refacting off the large ice particles (chunks?) suspended in the storm. I saw this in 2 different storms on May 31st of this year, and received hail (in West Corners, NY) during both of them (1.5" in diameter from the first one, which produced the tornado further south - we have received numerous reports of 2-2.5" hail across Broome County, NY from this storm, and as large as 4" in diameter in the Deposit, NY area)."