• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

The Closest You Personally Have Been to Lightning

Joined
Nov 20, 2007
Messages
392
Location
Richardson, TX
What's the closest that you have ever been to lightning? How did it affect you?

There are three times that come to mind for me. One was in 1972 when I was living in SE Ohio. One night as I watched a storm about 15 miles to my north, I was standing under my apartment roof, by a huge field, and within feet of a barbed wire fence (was in my early 20's, you know we are invincible at that age!) A few huge drops started falling, kind of clanging on the generator that sat a few yards from me. Up to then I was backed up against the wall under the roof, but when the drops started, I stuck my hand out, thinking that it might be hail and wanting to see... at that split second, a HUGE waterfall of blue lightning descended the equivilant of two houses away. At the same time, a tremendous blast of thunder occurred, the force of which knocked me to my knees.

In the time it took to run around to the front porch, maybe 30 seconds, there were three more of these. The moon came out and shined a streak through the falling rain and I realized that I had come close to losing my life.

Another time was when I had gone on a storm chase in the Monadnock Region of SW New Hampshire in 1986. I finally reached the storm, and watched from the safety of my car with windows rolled up. One bolt landed a few yards from my drivers side window, hit the parking lot, and broke into tens of pieces that slithered like snakes across the pavement. It was AWESOME!!

The third time was when I was living in Houston, in 2005-6. One Late Fall night in '05, as I stood on my back patio watching a storm envelop us with mostly occasional C-C lightning flashes, a tremendous bolt struck a lightpole right across the road from my patio. Fortunately I saw it out of the corner of my eye, for it was multi-branched and even from a glance, it left a lingering ribbon in my eyes for awhile after. The blast from the thunder made my ears ring for awhile after. That was certainly a wakeup call!
 
ive been pretty damn close a few times...enough to duck, and go back inside...

i dont remember specific dates, but if there is alot of lightning around, you wont find me outside looking at it...

the tree in our back yard has been hit twice by lightning on two separate occasions...one of those times, i was all heated typing on messenger to someone, and as soon as i mashed the enter key...BOOM!

the lightning struck!
 
This year in 5-23-07 Reno County, KS we chased a cell from near Kingman, KS - Cotton wood falls, KS. Genaro Estrada and I where sitting in the car watching the base of the storm, it was showing good rotation at the time. BOOOOOMMMM! the loudest boom i have ever heard it took 5 or 10 sec for me to snap out of the shell shock. Parked on the South edge of the road the bolt hit the ground just past the North edge of the road in the ditch! Why lightning would hit the lowest spot around I have no clue. Thats much closer then I ever wanted to be!
 
#1
I live about 100 or so yards from the Fairfield water tower; and one night during a storm, it got struck by lightning. It sounded like a bomb had gone off! My room is in the basement, and I could still hear the entire house shake.

#2
One night when I was at summer camp there was a storm that had woke me up in the middle of the night, and because I love to just lay in bed and listen to storms, thats what I did. After awhile, the storm died down and I thought it was over for the most part. I rolled over to go back to sleep, and all of a sudden I saw a huge bright light, and almost instantly was the loudest clap of thunder I had ever heard!! You should have heard all the girls in our cabin scream!!!
 
Had a strike hit within a hundred yards or so. Only way we could tell was from the dust it kicked up in a freshly plowed field! I was in the process of getting in a vehicle and could not notice the strike before hand. A friend of mine who was standing outside of the vehicle, however, had the hair on his arm raise on end.

I'm just preparing for David's novel on all of his close encounters ;)
 
I've seen many close calls from inside the car, probably the best one being on June 12, 2005 during the Kent County, TX tornado machine. A CG hit a couple hundred feet to the side of the road with a bright red glow, sending up a plume of back smoke from the ground.

Back in 1999 I was under an overpass when a bolt hit something directly overhead, possibly a light post on the road above. Back then I was shooting 35mm stills using a tape recorder to capture thunder:

http://stormhighway.com/thunder/close.mp3

My ears were ringing for 30 minutes after that.
 
1379476085_0d2f37c54c_m.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonperson/1379476085/

The closest I've ever been is about two feet! Lightning struck my 4Runner's two-meter HAM radio antenna while I was chasing on May 7th, 2000 near Bridgeport, Nebraska. I've never screamed like that since, thankfully :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3WJt2shAms
(WARNING: Profanity)

... Here's a slow-motion shot of the actual strike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgkfC8z21lA

... and a survey of the damage after the strike.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STkJGgGpA6U
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Wow, incredible video Jon! I like the shower of sparks that occurs as well! By chance, where was the ham radio mic when the lightning struck?
 
... where was the ham radio mic when the lightning struck?

The mic was hanging off the steering wheel; fortunately the current only made it as far as the radio. The antenna cable burst in several places from the overloading current, all along the cable from the rear window to between the front seats. This smoke made me think the truck was on fire, so I wanted to get out of there, but I didn't want to touch any metal for fear of being electrocuted. I thought I was stuck, so that left me with only one other logical option: panic!!1!
 
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Standing in the same spot taking pictures the opposite direction. All of a sudden I heard this rushing waterfall type sound so I ducked back inside the car and next thing I know it was a brilliant FLASH and instantaneous BOOOOOOOOOM! Didn't know what was hit or where it hit. Turns out it was the tree about 30 feet behind me and one of the branches of the lightning channel apparently caught the house on fire next door.

PICT0047.jpg
 
On august 12th 2007, while we were chasing a friend of mine caught on video a lightning strike that hitted a tree at about 40 feet from where I was.


strikeue8yy8.jpg


Let me tell you that I freaked! We were communicating with our CB's and you can hear us yell right after haha!

Here's the video! (strikes occur at 35 seconds)
WARNING: There's bad language .... but in french! LOLL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOxTsueVC8Y&eurl=
 
While I was the Aquatic Director at a Summer Camp, a storm rolled through and I got my kids out of the water. They were about one minute out of the water when lightning hit the lake about 50 feet from me. I had just stepped off of the metal dock after retrieving my clipboard.

We found several dead fish washed up on the shore the next morning and the water appeared to "boil" for a short time where the charge hit.

Heck... That was like twenty years ago now... Damn I'm old...
 
Anybody else ever felt the intense wave of static from an incompleted lightning strike? Happened to me and another of our chase party up in Miles City, MT photographing CG's from the parking lot... really heartbeating to feel the wave raising your hair for a second and hearing it at the same too! :eek:

Learnt my lesson as I especially have to be extra vigilant around CG lightning being 6'8" and don't want to end up being the human conductor... ouch.
 
I never really told anybody about this because it sounded ridiculous, but when I was chasing in the Texas panhandle several years ago I think I had the same experience you are talking about. I had a soft top Jeep, which made me extremely nervous around CG lightning. Anyways, I was on a storm (driving) when I felt something similar to static electricity. I didn't hear anything, but there was no mistaking the build up of static electricity. At the same time all of my equipment powered down. My car stereo, scanner, weather radio, and whatever else I had at the time. The weird thing is that some of it was running off my car some of it was battery powered, but it all turned off. It was so long ago that I don't really remember if it sputtered and stayed on or what. I just remembered it all shut off. You can imagine the thoughts that go through your head when that happens. I thought, "oh $h*!". I lightened my grip on the steering wheel and squinted my eyes expecting to get lit up by a bolt of lightning. It only lasted a few seconds then went away. I still don't know exactly what it was, but the only explanation I can come up with is that I was about to get struck by lightning and for some reason it didn't happen.

As far as close calls go, that happened in the Texas panhandle too on the Kent County tornadic supercell. I was video taping a weak lowering went a CG hit about 70 yards away. In the video the strike is out of the screen to my left, but the picture lights up (extremely bright). I blurted out a long drawn out "$h#!" and dropped the camera when it hit. I dropped the video off at the station I chase for when I got back to Wichita and told them that if they used that piece of video to edit the language. It was kind of hard to hear me cuss because of the bang from the strike, but if you were paying attention you could hear it easy enough. Anyways, after dropping off the video I went home to forecast for a little bit before heading out to chase northern Iowa that afternoon (it was a brutal 48 hours without sleep. I chased the panhandle, drove over night to Wichita to drop off video, then left and chased northern Iowa that afternoon). I was watching the morning show I the station I chase for while I forecasted and sure enough they showed the lightning strike clip (and they didn't edit it). There was a bunch of tornado footage on there too so I doubted they would show the lightning video. My roomate was sitting on the couch with me and when they showed the clip he turned and looked at me and goes, "did you say $h#!". I couldn't believe they didn't take that out. Somebody must have just overlooked it. Anyways, I thought it was pretty funny. The lightning strike itself wasn't funny at all though. It scared the hell out of me. When I had my Jeep I always thought about getting hit by lightning in my car and I envisioned the soft top melting and instantly shrink wrapping me like a little frozen burrito. I'm sure glad I got rid of the Jeep and have a solid roof over my head now.
 
When I lived in Tucson lightning struck the air conditioner of the house next door, the pole transformer in the alley, and best of all the twin palm trees across the street while I was storm watching. The tops of both trees were blown to smithereens and set afire.
 
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