I was driving  home from a gig one night in a pretty heavy storm, when lightning struck so close by that I could feel the heat from it. Tthe sound was instantaneous and like a bomb going off...the flash was bright white and blinding. 

That is the closest I have ever been to a lightning strike....and as close as I really ever want to be. 

Guitarhacker


I was driving  home from a gig one night in a pretty heavy storm, when lightning struck so close by that I could feel the heat from it. Tthe sound was instantaneous and like a bomb going off...the flash was bright white and blinding. 

That is the closest I have ever been to a lightning strike....and as close as I really ever want to be. 

Hmm...  You just reminded me of a third time I was really close.  It was waaaaay back in 1967 when I was being picked up at Detroit's airport by my Aunt and Uncle.  On the drive back to Grand Rapids (where they live) lightning hit the guard rail right next to the car.  *KRRRAAAAAANNNNGGG!!!!!*  My uncle almost lost control of the car, I just about jumped out of my skin and my Aunt, somehow, slept right through it.
 
I'll add the other two stories (just for completeness) in a bit!

Story 1 (I won't promise these will be exciting, but they WILL get me closer to double platypii, so...)

Back in the late 80's my friend bought a VW bug for $200 because a surfer said the engine had seized even though the engine and transmission were new (my friend guessed correctly that it was a simple fix - cost him about $35 and he had a great running car).  However, the surfer had "modified" the bug - which was already a very bright yellow - by cutting off the top with a hammer and screwdriver.  As bad as that sounds (and it was bad), there was something about riding in that car that everyone wanted to wave at you, including people in Bentley's on Rodeo Drive in Hollywood.

Anyway, one night we were in said bug driving in Hollywood and going to attend one of the Comedy Clubs back when Jay Leno was just the MC there.  We were inside when we began to hear some rumbles and wondered what they were.  Suddenly it hit us that it was thunder and we only had a very open convertible to drive in!  So we hauled ass out of there and barely outran the storm getting back to my friend's apartment.  It was a summer night with very bizarre lightning going off everywhere.  Lots of pane lightning that I'd never seen before, but lots of nasty strikes that were causing fires and other problems (fire engine sirens were wailing all around us).  I'm standing at the covered entrance to the apartment complex watching the display (it hadn't started raining yet) when a bolt hit the transformer on a pole about 15 feet away from me.  The only thing between me and the pole was a one-lane alley down the back of the complex.  Everything went completely white then the transformer exploded into green and the noise was indescribable.  I literally was deafened AND blinded for a few minutes (the power going off probabaly helped there - heh).  My friend's brother came running out to find out what happened and helped me into the apartment.  Apparently the electricity caused my hair to stand straight up which he found very hillarious.  I can still see a picture in my head of that transformer going - wildest thing I think I've ever seen.  I'm probably pretty lucky that I didn't get electrocuted, but I was too enthralled with the light show - amazing stuff!  I've never come close to seeing a display like that since.

Story 2 (not nearly as entailed as the previous one, but it still counts as another post!)

About four years ago, when I still had my house on the ridge with about 50 trees - many over 130 feet high, we had a pretty serious thunder storm pass over the house with one VERY big flash, bang and crack.  I couldn't tell then what the lightning had hit but, the next morning, I looked out and I had an extremely large "H" out in the back yard with some of the parts looking a bit strange or charred.  Turns out the lightning hit four of my trees blowing the bark off of a few and pretty much destroying one outright.  The one that took the worst damage was probably about 100-120 feet tall and the top 30 feet or so had been broken off the rest and was now laying sideways between two of the other trees (waaaaay up in the air).  When the tree specialist came out he called it a "widow maker" because these tend to fall on people.  It definitely took some interesting measures (and tree climbers) to get it to fall in a semi-controlled fashion.  I lost a total of five trees from that blast including a couple of gorgeous trees that I would have loved to keep.  Oh well.

No pix?  

Hmm...  I should have some of the tree damage (I've got a bunch, from several tree issues), I'll have to see if I can find some.

craigb


I was actually just returning to bed after a different kind of nature call when I happened to look outside the window... 
 
*FLASH*  ***BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!***
 
Right in front of me!  The flash and the boom happened simultaneously and boy was it loud!  It put all the fireworks from the 4th to shame.  The storm continued with strikes about every 5-10 seconds for the next 15 minutes, all within a mile of me (i.e., the booms were five seconds or less after the flash).  I realized I wasn't going to get any sleep for a bit so I thought I'd sit and watch the show!
 
(Then up the post count a bit and THEN go back to sleep for a bit!  LOL!)

We had one just like that yesterday.  Just the one.

It was put out by a huge Cu-Nim that had gathered overhead and started to rotate clockwise while slowly heading east (the norm round these parts is a prevailing S. Westerly).  The beast did have the first inklings of a funnel trying to poke it's way downward but that seemed to diminish when the cloud seemed to drop its entire contents over the next 10 minutes, causing all the traffic to stop and all the arriving 'weekenders' scattering all over the place...lol.

Yup an isolated yet spectacular one.

The mother nature ultimate wake up call. Been there, done that. It's hard to sleep with your eyes wide open.

Ever since I heard about people getting struck inside their houses while looking out it's made me nervous to watch (but doesn't usually stop me - I'm fascinated by the displays!).