Luminous phenomena and tornadoes

[Thomas Loades]

I have read several accounts — many are in William R. Corliss’ Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena, if you can find it (now out of print, I believe) — of unusual luminous phenomena being linked to tornadoes; the most “prolific†of these seem to be Blackwell, OK 5/25/1955, Toledo, OH 4/11/1965 (this was photographed — it’s on Blake Naftel’s website), Oil Trough–Jonesboro, AR 5/15/1968, and Redstone Arsenal–Huntville, AL 4/3/1974. I know of almost no accounts since then, so either this is an “oldies†thing like spirit photography, or . . . I don’t know. But has anyone on the forum here seen anything odd involving lights and tornadoes? Or has anyone seen ball lightning?

 

[Greg Stumpf]

Power Transformers exploding.

 

[Thomas Loades]

:lol: Of course.

 

[Dave Kaplow]

I've never seen anything like this myself, but an interesting recent example of this kind of thing, caught on tape by a well known chaser, can be seen here. Download the video, it's pretty weird.

 

[Gary Stofer]

I watched all four vids. It is interesting. I was thinking a logical explanation might be that perhaps clouds in the path of the sun (off to the right) opened up and let sunlight reflect off the side of the updraft, but it is such a sudden occurrance that it almost looked unnatural.

 

[Shyanna Busch]

Here's a link to this topic from a few weeks back. There's an interesting article on the phenomena.

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2475

 

[Thomas Loades]

Wow . . . those Neal Rasmussen videos are pretty cool. Maybe it’s the “tornado pulse generatorâ€￾ — probably not, but it’s in the right place!! It is pretty weird how it seems to be coming from inside the cloud and kind of opposite to the sunlight (like, you’d think if it were the sun reflecting, the flashes would be going to the right).

 

[Eric Flescher]

luminous stuff

Wasn't there a picture of two tornadoes near dusk somewhere in ohio in the 70s or 80s that supposedly showed 2 luminous type tornado like tubes that set off TVs which is a nother reason many knew the tornadoes were coming.

Dr.Eric Flescher ([email protected]),Olathe, KS -Storm Satori-http://members.aol.com/kcstormguy/stormsatori/stormsatori.htm

 

[Thomas Loades]

Yes, it was taken at (or near) Toledo, OH on April 11, 1965. That picture is on Blake Naftel's website www.mammatus.com on the Palm Sunday Outbreak page. A lot of people saw the tornado (rated F4, I think) either glowing, or “balls of fireâ€￾ shooting out of the funnel (ball lightning?). The photo shows two funnels — maybe suction vortices — glowing faintly.

The TV thing I think you need a UHF TV to work . . . something like lightning makes the screen flash when the darkness control is as low as it can go on a particular channel, and then when a tornado approaches the screen glows constantly. I have the feeling this was disproven, or something, but it's still interesting.