Rare, repeated upward lightning captured on video by storm chaser
February 24, 2023 8:03 PM Subscribe
Rare, repeated upward lightning captured on video by storm chaser [text article with embedded photographs and video]. Michael Keene has been chasing storms for 20 years. But even he was shocked to see repeated lightning strikes shooting upwards from two broadcast towers in the NSW Southern Highlands recently.
It's been over twenty years, but one of the coolest things I've ever seen was rosettes of cloud-to-cloud lightning when we lived in Minnesota. Nature is pretty damn cool.
posted by mollweide at 8:20 PM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by mollweide at 8:20 PM on February 24, 2023 [5 favorites]
I thought all lightning started from the ground?! Was about to post this when I found this great video
posted by grubby at 8:50 PM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by grubby at 8:50 PM on February 24, 2023 [9 favorites]
Very appropriate for the current and future storm seasons. Thanks.
posted by TrishaU at 8:57 PM on February 24, 2023
posted by TrishaU at 8:57 PM on February 24, 2023
I'm completely unconvinced that lightning ever really behaves differently from this.
Air converts to plasma under the influence of a potential difference high enough to strip the outer electrons off the air molecules. This kind of difference is overwhelmingly most likely to develop right next to conductors with sharp points, because charge will concentrate at those points.
Once a small parcel of air does convert to plasma it becomes itself a very good conductor. From charge's point of view, then, the effect is as if the pointy conductor next to which the gas breakdown just happened has had that point extended outwards into the air. Charge will very rapidly transfer into that extension, which then functions pretty much exactly like the original solid sharp point did, inducing further breakdown from gas to plasma right at the growing tip.
What a lightning strike is, then, is a very temporary extension of a grounded conductor into the sky along a self-organizing spike of highly conductive plasma. Plus, any tiny kink in the growing spike will act like another sharpish point in its own right and tend to induce local breakdown nearby, which is how the forks get started.
The plasma spike growth process feeds back on itself at ridiculously high speed, certainly far too fast for any human eye to judge in which direction the resulting lightning strike was actually growing.
posted by flabdablet at 8:57 PM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Air converts to plasma under the influence of a potential difference high enough to strip the outer electrons off the air molecules. This kind of difference is overwhelmingly most likely to develop right next to conductors with sharp points, because charge will concentrate at those points.
Once a small parcel of air does convert to plasma it becomes itself a very good conductor. From charge's point of view, then, the effect is as if the pointy conductor next to which the gas breakdown just happened has had that point extended outwards into the air. Charge will very rapidly transfer into that extension, which then functions pretty much exactly like the original solid sharp point did, inducing further breakdown from gas to plasma right at the growing tip.
What a lightning strike is, then, is a very temporary extension of a grounded conductor into the sky along a self-organizing spike of highly conductive plasma. Plus, any tiny kink in the growing spike will act like another sharpish point in its own right and tend to induce local breakdown nearby, which is how the forks get started.
The plasma spike growth process feeds back on itself at ridiculously high speed, certainly far too fast for any human eye to judge in which direction the resulting lightning strike was actually growing.
posted by flabdablet at 8:57 PM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Should not have commented quite so quick!
Many thanks to grubby for the Dan Robinson video, which has just extended my understanding of the lightning formation process to include plasma "leaders" that grow from nuclei inside clouds without needing any help from grounded conductors. Truly spectacular footage.
I still think it's reasonable to say that an actual lightning strike is going to begin on some part the grounded object being struck and then grow upwards, even if it's growing upwards to meet a leader heading toward it.
posted by flabdablet at 9:07 PM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
Many thanks to grubby for the Dan Robinson video, which has just extended my understanding of the lightning formation process to include plasma "leaders" that grow from nuclei inside clouds without needing any help from grounded conductors. Truly spectacular footage.
I still think it's reasonable to say that an actual lightning strike is going to begin on some part the grounded object being struck and then grow upwards, even if it's growing upwards to meet a leader heading toward it.
posted by flabdablet at 9:07 PM on February 24, 2023 [3 favorites]
I live in San Diego. To me, lightning is a thing "over and near the mountains." No biggie.
But then I spent six months in Toledo, Ohio. OMG! When you are out in the open and lightning is raging right above you, lightning is terrifying!
Special thanks to grubby for that video link.
posted by SPrintF at 1:34 AM on February 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
But then I spent six months in Toledo, Ohio. OMG! When you are out in the open and lightning is raging right above you, lightning is terrifying!
Special thanks to grubby for that video link.
posted by SPrintF at 1:34 AM on February 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
A thing I miss about South Florida vs Toronto is the regular, almost daily, thunderstorms. I love the sound of thunder. I'm happy with the trade I made though, and sometimes we do get a roller through the city, and it's nice.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:40 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:40 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Very appropriate for the current and future storm seasons. Thanks.
posted by TrishaU
I see what you did there.
posted by Splunge at 8:38 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by TrishaU
I see what you did there.
posted by Splunge at 8:38 AM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
I saw upward lightning once on the horizon, many years ago, on a car ride where the land was flat for many miles. It must have caught from something that wasn't prominent enough for me to see over the horizon. I've been gratified to learn that I wasn't seeing an illusion. I knew what I saw, and I didn't want to have an argument about I couldn't possibly have seen it, so I pretty much kept it to myself.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:00 AM on February 25, 2023
posted by Countess Elena at 10:00 AM on February 25, 2023
OMG! When you are out in the open and lightning is raging right above you, lightning is terrifying!
I grew up in southern Ontario where lightning is often right above you (indeed, one of my high school classmates did not see twenty-five because he happened to be camping during a storm). However, where I spent my early life, there is... terrain. The first time I experienced a lightning storm in Saskatchewan, I recall being floored at this vast dome above me suddenly lighting up half my vision.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:09 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
I grew up in southern Ontario where lightning is often right above you (indeed, one of my high school classmates did not see twenty-five because he happened to be camping during a storm). However, where I spent my early life, there is... terrain. The first time I experienced a lightning storm in Saskatchewan, I recall being floored at this vast dome above me suddenly lighting up half my vision.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:09 PM on February 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's been over twenty years, but one of the coolest things I've ever seen was rosettes of cloud-to-cloud lightning when we lived in Minnesota. Nature is pretty damn cool.
1998 we had a wicked summer storm in SE Michigan knock out power for a week, but that first night post-storm without power had probably over an hour of cloud-to-cloud lightning drawing webs in the sky. It was gorgeous
posted by JoeXIII007 at 5:19 PM on February 25, 2023
1998 we had a wicked summer storm in SE Michigan knock out power for a week, but that first night post-storm without power had probably over an hour of cloud-to-cloud lightning drawing webs in the sky. It was gorgeous
posted by JoeXIII007 at 5:19 PM on February 25, 2023
A thing I miss about South Florida vs Toronto is the regular, almost daily, thunderstorms. I love the sound of thunder. I'm happy with the trade I made though, and sometimes we do get a roller through the city, and it's nice.
The first time I had ever seen a winter thunderstorm was while living in Toronto. It was during a heavy snowfall, so you never saw any lightning bolts. But the heavy clouds lit up pink, followed by muffled thunderclaps.
From high school physics I knew that ionized hydrogen (energized in a near vacuum like a 'neon' light) had a pink light, so I imagined the pink light of the clouds had something to do with that, but remain ignorant of the exact mechanism there.
posted by rochrobbb at 3:58 AM on February 26, 2023
The first time I had ever seen a winter thunderstorm was while living in Toronto. It was during a heavy snowfall, so you never saw any lightning bolts. But the heavy clouds lit up pink, followed by muffled thunderclaps.
From high school physics I knew that ionized hydrogen (energized in a near vacuum like a 'neon' light) had a pink light, so I imagined the pink light of the clouds had something to do with that, but remain ignorant of the exact mechanism there.
posted by rochrobbb at 3:58 AM on February 26, 2023
« Older The Little Nicholson Baker In My Mind | Companies save billions of $$$ by giving employees... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by hippybear at 8:09 PM on February 24, 2023