Question for lightning photographers

[Dave Gallaher]

When the severe line came through HSV this evening (5/1), I got rained out of a gig and wound up sitting for an hour with a good view to the east. About two to three miles away--atop Monte Sano, Huntsville Mountain and Green Mountain--are several TV towers. The southernmost of these took at least 9 strikes during a period of roughly a half hour.

Some strikes were nearly straight down, had one large and clear channel, while others were brief and dim. A couple were split at the tower in a V form. Later, long transversal bolts were coming from cells that had moved some distance away yet kept hitting the same tower.

I had no camera, of course...

Is it normal to see a single object attract that many strikes over a short period?

 

[Chris Hayes]

Dave I envy you with that. Less than a half mile from my house is a large (200' or so) tower with a beacon on top of it. When I do lightning photography from my house I shoot in either its direction (NW) or NE. I keep waiting for the day when I get a lightning bolt hitting that tower. I have yet to see that tower hit, let alone get a picture of it being hit.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

When the severe line came through HSV this evening (5/1), I got rained out of a gig and wound up sitting for an hour with a good view to the east. About two to three miles away--atop Monte Sano, Huntsville Mountain and Green Mountain--are several TV towers. The southernmost of these took at least 9 strikes during a period of roughly a half hour.

Some strikes were nearly straight down, had one large and clear channel, while others were brief and dim. A couple were split at the tower in a V form. Later, long transversal bolts were coming from cells that had moved some distance away yet kept hitting the same tower.

I had no camera, of course...

Is it normal to see a single object attract that many strikes over a short period?

http://www.extremeinstability.com/08-9-29.htm

I haven't tried this many times yet, but this night I got 6 hits to the north Omaha TV towers in oh I don't know, 20-30 minutes. This convection was absolutely pathetic the whole time too...as in really no cg's and hardly any cc bolts. The best time seems to behind lines under an "energetic" anvil. Often get some reverse bolts like the last one on there....actually coming off/touching all 4 towers. I thought they'd sort of get zapped and then not really be able to for a while. That didn't really seem to be the case. Front one gets hit then the one behind gets it back to back, then the front one gets it again, then the left one, then they all have the reverse bolt go up off them. The taller the towers the better. That southern one you mention must be considerably taller than the others? If the atmosphere is "juiced" up it's probably not much different than someone charging their feet and touching the same grounded object over and over.

I've never had any luck with the shorter variety of towers. I no longer even try those. If that one is 200' Chris I'd probably consider that one of the shorter ones. Surely better than nothing, but those 1000 footers(guessing) are really good at it. I've just wasted a lot of time and gotten wet messing with all the others.

 

[Dave Gallaher]

Great stuff, Mike--thanks. In agreement with your experience, these storms were prolific with rain, but not much else. Only one hail report in AL last time I looked. But there's still a lot of lightning with the subsequent lines coming through.

 

[Dan Robinson]

These are the classic upward-moving or 'ground-to-cloud' (GC) lightning discharges. They are initiated by an upward moving stepped leader, as opposed to a downward moving stepped leader with a conventional CG.

Dr. Uman at UFL wrote in his book 'The Lightning Discharge' that towers above 300 feet high are more likely to initiate upward lightning. From what I've observed, you really need one over 600-800 feet high to do it efficiently. I have never observed an upward strike from a smaller tower (under 300-400 feet). Most broadcast TV towers are thousand-footers or taller, so they are the best sites to observe/photograph upward strikes. You just have to find where your local TV stations are transmitting from, and there's your tower.

This type of lightning has really grabbed my interest in recent years. It is very predictable, thus easy to observe at close range. I have been keeping a page dedicated to it here:

http://stormhighway.com/tower.shtml

 

[Marko Korosec]

Dan, so I guess having a 'strong' tower atop of the mountain would be a good target as well? I have such a mountain here 1300m high which is 600-700m above the ground around (see: http://www.weather-photos.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/27_10_2005mk16.jpg).

I really would like to try shoot some of these GC strikes, looks incredible on both images you and Mike H took.

 

[Dave Gallaher]

Thank you, Dan---compelling information on your site.

 

[Olivier Staiger]

last year I was filming during a storm out of the motel room window, there was an antenna nearby, and lightning hit it twice within just 12 seconds :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5tE6VmB-FA&feature=channel_page

whenever there's lightning going on I try to find an antenna or communications tower or crane in the field of view. It doesn't always work, but often, and when it does it can be rewarding.


in 2004 I was lucky to catch a bright lightning hitting a nearby construction crane, image got overexposed:

http://www.klipsi.ch/blitze/hitcrane.jpg

the smaller bolt to the left looks as if it aims for the chimney but in fact it is miles away , hitting on the horizon "behind" the chimney. The real deal here was the big bolt that hit the middle of the crane. that storm had several bolts but only one hit the crane. I was quite pissed off and angry with myself that I had only used the photo camera and not also set up the videocam on a tripod because the sound was awesome. I clearly heard a metallic "clank" 1/4 second before the strong thunder. As if I heard the bolt impact on the crane followed by the thunder immediatelly afterwards.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Marko, the mountain tower should work, in theory. Isolated/high mountain peaks can actually initiate upward lightning by themselves, so a tall tower wouldn't be needed if it was in such a location.

It's interesting that before modern civilization, upward (ground-to-cloud) lightning was something that most people would never see. It was a phenomenon naturally confined to rugged mountain areas. Towers allow it to regularly occur outside of its 'natural habitat' so we can enjoy it anywhere.

 

[Christopher Ulrich]

Lightning

I'm no expert but I really don't think it's unatural for lightning to hit a tower on a mountain seven times in half an hour.

 

[Christopher Ulrich]

Oops, I mean nine lightning strikes.

 

[Darren Addy]

THAT is one amazing pic, H.

PS to Christopher... there is an "edit" button on all of one's own posts, which (unfortunately) I have to make use of all the time to edit errors in my posts.

 

[Christopher Ulrich]

Yeah

Yeah I know there is an edit button. I just forgot and didn't think about it. Thank you though, I hope I'll remember it next time.

 

[Paul Redmond]

In 1998 I had a close up and personal view of a step leader from a light pole less than 50 feet from me. I was too busy diving into the car at the time to really notice it, while trying to avoid becoming a lightning strike statistic. But later in the video I saw a clear step leader from the steel pole. I am guessing the steel light pole was 30ft high in a parking lot. Dont ask me what I did with that old video.

 

[Dan Nichols]

On rare occasions, I hear a pronounced "TICK" a split second before the loud thunder (see my post: Thunderfans Unite). Someone suggested a leader. Why it occurs ahead of the thunder, I'm not sure. There's a big water tower right here in Manchester (CT) I could park myself next to -- unfortunately not as close as I'd like without being drenched -- to hopefully see it get struck someday.