Question--Lightning

Has anyone noticed any diffence in the intensity of lightning in your area? There's been a major difference here in NEPA..We used to get a thin line, sort of, but now they're huge and lights everything up..Anyone else? (BTW, I guess you can tell that I don't know how to describe lightning, please bear with me).

very bright and the lightening 'bolts' (I, too, am lightening illiterate!) weren't just lines but had many veins to them which were spread wide and very angular.

Anyway, it was a scary bunch of lightening, more violent then I've seen in many years.

huge, large strikes, unbelievable..And, people, dogs, mailboxes, and gargages have been getting "hit" here, which is sort of unusual..I remember the bolts in FL when we were there, and this reminds me of the same kind, but larger..It's truly frightening.

I think God is trying to thin out the freepers.

Notice how an expensive subdivision is rarely hit?

was striking all over the place, left and right.

We decided to make ourselves very compact and not touch the sides of the car 'just in case' - again, since we're light on lightening knowledge and were just plain terrified.

It was in the Brandywine region outside of Philly. We were at the Andrew Wyeth home and museum. There was literally fire flying through the air. I thought we were goners.


"Christina's World," by Andrew Wyeth

years, but the worst I ever saw personally was flying a Cessna 310 into
DCA back in 73 (?)...in the soup trying to get on approach. And hail.
It actually flipped the poor little thing nearly inverted...we had a 200 lb. machine sitting in the #3 seat and it went internally airborne. Jim Coburn (brother to Tom, former congressman and possibly Senate candidate who I used to fly around the country before he became a wingnut) had the most terrified expression I've ever seen on a human face. I called Washington center and said "I am executing a 180 right now" - and just did it before getting any clearance. Never got any shit for it.
:D
This is a true story. (got your note, Mac)...

My mountain house is in Transylvania County, NC, the #2 lightning county behind Hillsborough. Transylvania is also the #2 rainfall county behind some county in Washington state. I got back here a week ago tonight after two weeks away to vacate the Dallas house, and the grass was - literally - above my knees. My rain gage was overflowing at 8-inches for those 13 days.

I've had a number of airborne lightning strikes in my career. One on a JetStar II put a half-dollar sized hole in the radome. Another, on a Boeing 737-400, happened on an approach into Tucson. The cells were dry, so they didn't paint on the radar. We were getting the shit kicked out of us in these invisible cells as we shot the approach. All of a sudden my hair stood up on my head. I knew what was next: KA-BOOM! We could hear the 140 some-odd passengers screaming in the back. Everything seemed OK until touch-down, when the auto-spoilers did not deploy. No big deal - pull the handle. However, as we taxied in we found that several other circuits on the "squat switch" had been fried by the lightning.

we just had a crazy storm a couple hours ago.

:hi:

I'm about to leave this wonderful area for good though, I'm graduating from BU and moving on the bigger and better things.

BU is a great school. I'm sure your degree will open many doors for you.

:bounce:

but it could have a been a fluke event. You can probably contact the National Weather Service and they could tell you if their observations coincide with your observations.

It was pretty hairy for a while here in the Hazleton area. I stayed away from the windows but it sure sounded like hail along with the rain on the window awnings.

going to be like? The thunder is another thing also..It's just totally weird and different, IMO..

We started to get tornado warnings (and some deadly tornados too!) a year or two ago. My wife thinks it's due to the Concorde, or the absence of it. It messed with the jet streams. We had droughts, and were flooded last year. Hard to know what to expect. :P