Lightning inside Waterspout?

[Bob Hartig]

I'm not sure what to make of this photo. The caption says it's a lightning strike inside a waterspout. My hunch is, it's part urban legend, and that the outer illumination is just part of the bolt, not a vortex. What do you think: Real or fake? Better yet, do you know any actual, verifiable facts about the photo?

 

[Rick Schmidt]

The whole photo looks fake to me, but I guess you could make a case for a lightning bolt with a 'waterspout' drawn in. How could a lightning bolt follow the exact outline of a vortex?

 

[Jeff Duda]

Looks low res. I bet there's an alternate explanation. Definitely some channel drift, but could it be shopped? It doesn't look like the camera got nudged since no other part of the image is blurred, but perhaps some sort of internal stabilization technology allowed for the remainder of the image (which isn't transient like the lightning is) to remain focused. If there was a landspout I would think you would see some condensation. Doesn't seem to be too many waterspouts without condensation.

Was any ancillary information given? Where? When? What did radar look like in the area at the time? Was there any support for rotation?

 

[Dan Robinson]

Appears to be either a windblown channel with two return strokes (one with continuing current that allowed some streaking), or an image shot through a rain-soaked window. The latter can distort bright lights similar to the way this one did.

 

[Bob Hartig]

No info on it that's of any help. A well-meaning friend posted it on my FB page. It bore the caption "Lightning in a Waterspout, never seen anything so powerful," which to me smacks of urban legend. When I queried the source, my friend said he did a little research and said the photo was supposedly "taken off of Little Torch Key, Florida, in 2010." That much may be true; it's the claim about the photo that I doubt. Of the few waterspouts I've seen, none has had such a sinuous, ropy appearance, and I just can't imagine a spout serving as channel for a perfectly conformed lightning strike. Channel drift makes sense to me; with two solid votes on it, I'll take it.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Without a doubt this is NOT lightning inside a waterspout.

This is a "banjo effect" as it's called of the irregular lightning channel being exposed over a second or two of the frame. The lightning channel moving (with the wind) causes this effect on a time-frame (such as long exposure of more than a tenth of a second).

A similar effect can be seen with bolts from a Tesla coil (below)...