Great thread. The 'flashy' video was very entertaining because of the depiction of the storm itself. I also enjoyed the dad's attitude towards it and his sharing it with his young son along with the raw reaction of his son.
The linked Florida storm with the big hit is also great. Of course I had to search a few others. I liked this one among many others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hm-2WvzEGM&NR=1 There is some mature, or immature, depending on how you look at it, language, but not bad at all. The big/close bolt near the end and his delayed shocked reaction are great. The lights going out reminds me of a storm I encountered roughly mid-August 98 driving from the Los Angeles basin towards the Bonneville Salt Flats for Speed Week. Approaching Barstow, CA in the high desert on I15, while passing an outlet mall miniature city if you will, a lightning bolt hit the power box on a nearby hill beyond the mall area which was roughly one quarter mile square. When the bolt left so did all the lights in that area.
As far as the comments about the man upstairs bowling, I have a very distinct memory from the time of the 81/82 (was it?) El Nino event and its effects on Southern California. I was in early elementary school and had a substitute teacher one day probably in January or February. When the thunder started rolling, she got very enthusiastic and jumped on the intercom with the front office, excitedly asking, "is that thunder or is the man upstairs bowling?" Picture Liza Minnelli in appearance and attitude. I believe she also asked permission or mentioned we would be going outside as a class to watch the storm. Do that today and someone or something probably ends up with a seven figure lawsuit against them even if nobody gets hurt.
Once outside I witnessed conditions I don't believe I've seen before or since around here, especially during that time of year. That was a strong and somewhat rare El Nino as I have come to understand it. The bases were solid at probably 5K or above, little or no precip at the school, but massive cloud to cloud multiple branch and fork lightning was showing up every 10-15 seconds or so with a fairly continuous rumble of thunder just rolling on and on with Liza Minnelli narrating the show for all the second graders.
On edit after reading the video comments and reviewing the video, I think that was just a transformer explosion. Agreed? There's a lack of thunder afterwards. It's one heck of a substitute. Being from Southern CA, I've experienced some big earthquakes. The Northridge and Landers quakes in 94 and 92 respectively, shook the city I was in (Diamond Bar) with about the same intensity. Northridge was a 6.x and Landers was a stout 7.3. Transformers start blowing up with a big green flash and bang if you are close enough. Those earthquakes created something probably on the order of 30 green flashes on one half of my viewing horizon during roughly a 20 second period.
