This video from a dashcam was taken July 24th, 2016 in Chicago. The slo-mo of the lightning hitting a pole near the vehicle is one of the most intriguing things I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen lot of videos that were of lightning strikes, but never one so close and with such detail.
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Toothpicks….
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The vehicle only suffered damage to the driver’s seat.
Funny how lightning can leave what appears to be a sh*t stain on something it doesn’t even hit.
Yep I’d be changing my jocks for sure .
Shocking.
Jolting too. Positively electrifying on top of everything else.
Groooaaannnnn….
Slivered me Timbers
I would have required a seat replacement and a DECON shower.
It’s the Global Warming (TM) that slowed the camera’s motion.
First I’d say it, then I’d do it. Then I’d be looking for a pair of clean underwear.
Fascinating. My own close call with lightning happened about 1958. I was riding with friends when a thunderstorm approached. As the rain began to get heavier and the thunder coming very close after the flash we retreated to the stable. We were looking out at the space between the house and the stable (About 20ft) when a jagged streak of lightning slanted down over the roof of the stable (close thing) and struck the flowerbed between the buildings. The following must have happened very quickly but we all saw it. The lightning struck producing a little puff of soil and a crack like a whiplash to be drowned out almost instantly by the deafening thunder. If it had struck the stable…..
Has anyone else heard this ‘crack’? Never heard any mention of it since then.
Real slow-motion sometimes shows an ionization trail leading from the ground up. Once the ionized path is established there is a full discharge to ground.
My *guess* is that the crack you heard was the initial upwards ionization trail forming, and the boom the full discharge.
I’ve heard the crack from all the strokes I’ve been close to. High frequency sounds attenuate in air, so they get lost from thunderclaps pretty quickly.
It’s one reason high frequency sounds from wind turbines aren’t a problem but low frequency sounds are.
Have you ever noticed that thunder close by sounds nothing like thunder far away. Close by, thunder is a crack. Far away it’s a boom. I prefer the boom.
“Close by, thunder is a crack.”
I was within about twenty yards of a tree that got hit and split in half once.
It sounded like tearing canvas, but very, very loud.
The scary thing was, just before it hit my hair stood on end and all the hairs on my body prickled.
“Oh, sh1t” I thought…
I was looking out my kitchen window back in 1972, loved lightning storms, when suddenly the hairs stood up on my arm and a bright blinding flash zoomed past the second story window horizontally. I remember the smell of the Ionized air hitting me just before and the ZZZZZZTTTT ZZZZZTTTT sound then the Loud Boom.
It went to ground through the Rebar in the Concrete Block wall at the back of the apartment complex.
My close encounter happened in VietNam–Dec 1970. Had guard duty and was positioned in a tower with 2 other guys. Rain coming down sideways, and the three of us huddled under a poncho doing our best to keep ourselves, M-16’s and the M-60 dry. Sudden blinding flash–I thought someone had just taken our picture (little paranoia) except we were 30 feet in the air. Didn’t know what had happened, but as Bryan said, the smell, the hissing sound, and little blueish streaks of light running around the tower’s edges. I guess about 30 seconds went by when guys were running our way from the bunkers on either side of our position–expecting to find us all crispy. Our field phone was dead, and the guys in the bunkers were nearly deaf from the thunder, but being ground zero for the lightning strike, we never heard a sound. The triple rolls of concertina wire right in front of us had pulled the charge to ground–if not for that, the tower would have looked much like the pole in the video clip. I got to go home about a week later, thank god.
I was in a tiny little hut (about 10′ x 10′) on top of White Mountain peak (abt 14,000 ft elevation) in the White-Inyo mountains when lightning struck. The hut had 4 lightning rods, one at each corner, two of which had been hit so many times that they were reduced to about half their original length. I was only a few feet from the rod that got hit. Even though we were inside the hut, the sound (a crack) was so loud that I was completely deaf for about 20 seconds. Fortunately, the hearing came all of the way back. But I know what you mean by “crack.” I didn’t hear any thunder afterwards because of the deafness. The two folks who were with me also lost hearing for about the same length of time. One of them was holding something metal and ended up with a small burn on his hand but the metal object didn’t seem hot so we had no idea why.
“One of them was holding something metal and ended up with a small burn on his hand but the metal object ”
It’s basically an antenna. The breakdown voltage in dry air is about 10,000 volts per centimeter. Just before the lightning strikes the vertical gradient of electric charge rapidly increases; first place to reach 10,000 volts per centimeter starts the lightning; a pointed metal object concentrates charges and that’s why lightning rods are pointy.
Anyway, even a slight difference in conductivity or height above ground will result in attempts by electrons to equalize potential so you’ll be shocked by almost anything in the vicinity.
It’s also a bit like a capacitor. The lightning will discharge the electric field but you are still holding a metal object charged with electrons and no place to go, but now instead of trying to reach the cloud they are happy to return to ground right through your hand.
I walked the JMT in 1966. IIRC on Glen Pass a T-storm passed over us. We sheltered in a gully with a bit of an over-hang. The lightning struck the gully edge many times, showering us with rock flakes and setting our hardware to buzzing.
Has anyone else heard this ‘crack’?
Yes on one occasion. We had a set of underground labs in some WWII era bunkers on top of a hill. One lunchtime we encountered a very heavy thunderstorm, one of my colleagues ran from the one bunker to the office and we saw a lightning strike right next to him! He staggered and then finished the run to the office, he said that he felt like he was hit by a shockwave. I definitely recall the crack sound, I think it’s the expansion of the hot air exceeding the speed of sound.
Yes, and it’s also called the “crack” of lightning.
Reside in one of the lightning capitals of the world. Sometimes we get so many lightning flashes that you don’t even need a light to walk around the house.
There are lightning maps on the internet which show where the most lightning flashes occur.
Yes, several times. It is a bit like a ‘fizz’ and comes from the ‘leader’. If the sound is heard it means the strike is coming just NOW and very close. I used to live in an area with one of the highest lightning strike rates in the world. Overhead wires were common strike points. We used to install 170 Joule 270 volt varisters (about the size of a quarter) between every incoming wire and ground on equipment that needed protection, often inside the multi-plug extension cords. They would provide massive protection, dying in the attempt of course. They explode and smoke but provide nano-second protection above 270 volts by shorting the lines together.
Many years ago I was sitting in my bedroom at my computer, my back to the window, when somebody let off a shotgun 6″ behind my head. When I managed to peel myself off the ceiling, the house was dark, most of the electronics in my home were damaged. I looked outside and in the ground just outside the window was a jagged gash about 6″ deep and 8′ long, following the line of the pipe from my well to the house. The computer was surge-protected, but the strike had induced a current in the phone line that fried the modem. I was sitting about 8-10′ from where the strike hit
Imagine a mile long line of fire crackers going off simultaneously. If you are close to any point of the line, you should here what sounds like a normal firecracker going off but the rest of the firecracker’s sound will blend together and be delayed as sound only moves 1000 feet per second. Add to this all the echo of the air, clouds and ground and you can see why thunder is just the messy sound of a lot of “cracks” all going off as the same time.
And that, kids, is why we don’t shelter under trees in a thunderstorm.
/publicservicebroadcast
Working in the SIerra Nevada of California we were working along a ridge at 7,000 feet. We found a number of red fir that had strips peeled off from lightening strikes and huge splinters embedded in the soil. A couple stood over eight feet (2.4 meters to the Imperially challenged) above the ground and were jammed in so firmly we could not get them out of the ground.
I grew up in an area where severe thunderstorms were not common. One summer, when I was a teenager, we had a really severe one come through the area one night. A local farmer lost over a dozen cattle because they had sought shelter from the rain under trees, and the trees were struck by lightning. The following weekend I happened to be at the livestock auction where this farmer was selling a bunch of his calves, including several that were offspring of the electrocuted cows. That was probably the most laughter I ever heard at a livestock auction, as the auctioneer kept making jokes about the “lightning-susceptible” versus “lightning-resistant” calves.
Looked to me like someone holding the camera (smart phone perhaps?). A dash cam would be fixed and would not have lowered to show the sticker on the windshield toward the end of the clip.
Either way much closer than I ever want to be.
The perspective was uncanny Myron. I had the sense their dashcam was dangling from the rearview mirror as there was no flinching jerk when it struck. Come to think of it, I didn’t hear any whelps or gasps either. Regardless, if this video is real – it captures a close encounter with nature at its finest.
Nearest I have been was off the coast of Nigeria. The strike blasted the fibre glass VHF aerial off the main mast. What a crack!
Way back before portable video cameras, I saw lightning hit a power pole next to the road at almost the exact same distance. The pole survived intact, but the top of the pole-mounted transformer blew completely off in a HUGE shower of sparks. Like being right next to a 4th of July firework.
I won’t hazard a guess if any the following applies to utility poles, but I’ve noticed live trees have a species-dependent response to lightning.
Eastern hemlocks explode, not quite as dramatically as this utility pole, but similarly. Apparently the current from the lightning bolt travels down the core of the tree and boils the moisture there producing the pressure that makes for such an impressive result.
Red oaks respond very differently, current flows through the cambium, the layer between xylem (brings water and mineral up to leaves, becomes the core) and phloem (takes sugar to the roots, becomes bark). This results in a strip of bark, about three inches to 10 cm wide, getting blown off from the tree. The tree often dies anyway but remains standing until it rots or someone harvests it for his wood stove.
Thanks for that, Ric. I’ve seen quite a few trees with long strips knocked out by lightning, but have never seen one exploded like this pole. Different species, of course, and you have to be there when it happens, or there’ll be nothing to see.
Ric,
I too have seen the spiral track of lightning down ponderosa pines. It doesn’t seem to harm the larger trees unless a fire starts in the duff at the bottom of the tree. I do remember coming across a strange site on top of a ridge near Castle Crags State Park in northern California that topped my list of weird lighting. As I was hiking I began to find sherds of wood and bark on the ground. Like something that had come out of a wood chipper. But we were at +2,500 meters and nary a chipper around. As I began to take in the whole scene, I realized that the wood and bark debris was evenly distributed around a 1/2 Meter tall stump of a fir tree that was about 30 CM in diameter. Apparently the tree had been hit by lightning and, like an egg in a microwave, exploded in all directions.
I’ve seen several “exploded” trees in Montana after a severe thunderstorm. They looked rather like enormous shaving brushes. Unfortunately I didn’t check what species of fir it was. May well have been Western Hemlocks.
In May, we had two strikes hit our property. Fortunately I shutdown the computers after the first. The second hit an oak tree 200 feet away as I stood on the porch. I can honestly say I have seen “the white light.” It destroyed two 11 KVA transformers, phone cable, a 1″ water line in two places, controller for well pump, and blew a chunk of concrete out of my garage apron. The slivers from the tree were 18 inches long and flew 50 feet. The ground at the tree’s base was blown out. The steel cover for the phone pedestal flew 8 feet. We got lucky. Lightning is fickle. I did a lot of digging over two weeks to fix the water line. Seek cover in a storm.
As a ‘newbie’ here, Lightning — in and of itself — is a natural phenom. occurring all over the World thousands(??) of times an hour(??). (Right????)
If the much-cherished principle held by Environmentalists that the mathematical singularity of the flap of a butterfly-wing in Curacao can create a Cyclone in — say — Cuba, surely the effect of the mathematical singularity of a lightning-strike in Chicago (or Chaffsville, Sask.) is immeasurably greater for Cambodia, Canada and Cameroons. Surely, the Ruling Law of Atmospheric Science is — Chaos!
I’d like to see the contorted logic of the Alarmist Scientists applied to harnessing lightning-strike-data as evidence of “Global Warming”. (I wonder if they have data on lightning-strikes going back thousands of years for them to mannipulate evidence of anthropogenic influence? Maybe proxies thereof anyone?!)
Ross,
For your reading pleasure. If you can find the original, read it before the wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder
by Ray Bradbury: “A Sound Of Thunder” is a story first published in Collier’s magazine (June 28, 1952)
“I wonder if they have data on lightning-strikes going back thousands of years”
There are actually fossil lightning strikes. They are called “fulgurites”
Note, the strike emanated from the TOP of the pole, upward. If you can stay within a “pole radius” of a utility pole, the lightning will emanate from the LIGHTNING LINE on the top of the pole. (That’s what it is there for.)
Thus affording a reasonable chance of keeping YOU from being the starting point… (which will kill you).
I wouldn’t bet my life on that. The best advice is to avoid being anywhere near a lightning strike. link
One way to be killed or injured involves ground currents. The current flows away from the strike through the ground. At any two points on the surface of the ground there will be a potential difference (ie. voltage). Because of this, current can flow up one of your legs, through your body and down the other leg.
Remember, the advice is not “don’t touch a tree”. The advice is, “don’t be under a tree”. That also applies to utility poles, even if they have lightning protection. Lightning is a nasty, nasty transient. That means you have to consider inductance and capacitance and magnetic fields and electrostatic fields. Most of the people killed when lightning strikes trees aren’t actually touching those trees.
The safest place to be is inside something that will act like a Faraday cage.
Mountaineering: Freedom of the HIlls by The Mazamas has the best compendium of advice collected over many man-years. Caught in open country, squat, hug your knees, keep your head down and feet as close together as possible.
Please tell me they were planning to put a wind turbine on that pole.
Definitely a sphincter-factor of nine.
I was 12 or so, camping with my troop at Forestburg Scout Reservation when I had my close encounter. I was standing in front of one of the tents, and about 5-8 feet on the backside of the tent was the unfortunate tree. I remember seeing white, blue, yellow and orange light and maybe plaid for all I know since I happened to be looking right at the tree when it was struck. It peeled the bark of in a spiral to 5 feet or so above the ground. As exciting as it was for me, only 20 feet or so away, my buddy was IN the tent and maybe 10 feet away from ground zero!
Well, been in plenty of summer thunderstorms out on Lake Michigan off Chicago in my former sailboat. Worried about wind gusts much more than lightning. Boat was designed so that all the stainless steel mast guys ran to ground in the massive cast iron winged keel (only 8 foot draft rather than 12 with a regular keel) through chain plates imbedded in the nonconducting fiber glass hull. As long as you stayed inside that Faraday cage and did not touch anything conductive, no problem except for the boom. Boom was a big problem a few times. Never fried the electronics or the engine. Same inside an airplane. Faraday cages are saviors. Basic physics works.
I sailed small boat in and around Charleston, SC, and was amazed by the LOW frequency of notable lightning strikes to masts.
I noticed two odd things: The people in the car did not react vocally, almost as if they weren’t really aware it happened. And the two white street lights up ahead continued to burn (flicker in SloMo) for a while after the pole exploded, then went out. Otherwise, it was not unlike any other lightning strike a few dozen feet away. 😉
In lineman speak, the lights remaining on/flickering may be due to a 3-shot setting on the breaker. A three shot means the circuit will remain or come back on three times before it cuts out. Happens very fast. Depends on the circuit. A one shot setting cuts out and stays out at the first indication of a ground fault. A one shot is set when men are working the line. A lightening arrester directs the load to ground through a graphite conductor.
Many many years ago in the wee hours of the morning a nasty storm rolled through and lightning struck the tree in our backyard that was about 25 feet from the house (the tree was a large hybrid poplar). It sounded like an explosion. It pretty much was. It was so dark and pouring down rain we couldn’t see what happened right after. It wasn’t until later in the morning we got the full picture. The tree was blown to smithereens from the inside out. There were pieces of all sizes covering everything everywhere. Pieces were on other people’s properties as well all around us up and down the street blocks. What a clean up that was. A large piece pierced the roof on the detached garage. The roof on the house also got damaged some. The crazier bit was some of the lightning jumped to the electrical wiring in the garage about 10 feet from the tree. It burnt a hole right through the wood siding and went into a junction box. From there it traveled through the wiring back into the house and zapped several electronic items. It boogered up the electric service panel too. That was replaced. I think everything was covered by insurance except the damage to the garage (repairs came out of his own pocket for that). My dad replaced the entire roof on the garage with the help of a good friend of his. It was also completely rewired by an electrician.
Crazy experience overall and one I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. I can still remember being half asleep when it happened and it woke me right up. The TV still on in my room and as soon as it happened the picture went to static. The lightning had fried the amplifier for the antenna, lol.
I had cattle killed by lightning that had struck a long way away from them, but current ran along a barbed wire fence and hit cows scratching themselves.
Obviously there needs to be a ban on lightning. Of course, they will have to raise taxes for the new “Lightning Prohibition Agency”.
They also produce the same chemicals the Volkswagen diesel cars produce when are tuned to run at high temperatures. (ozone and nitrogen oxides) but at higher quantities. The only difference is that you cannot sue nature.
Thanks for sharing Anthony. It’s a shame that more urban residents don’t get to witness the the power of nature directly like that just because of the topography of big cities. No wonder our ancestors placed a thunderbolt in the hands of our leading deities.