Storms
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Cloud Lightning

India: Western Ghats, Arabian Sea contributing to high incidence of lightning


NewIndPress
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:40 UTC
Blame all the lightning strikes happening this summer on the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, say a team of scientists at the Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS).

The two geographical structures that sandwich the state provide the temperature contrast that ultimately leads to the highest incidence of lightning in the country.

Though mountains are a major factor known for the formation of the cumulonimbus clouds (Cb) that cause lightning, R Vishnu, S Murali Das and G Mohan Kumar of the Atmospheric Sciences Division of the CESS have experimentally proved it.
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Cloud Lightning

US, Massachusetts: Lightning starts fire

Michelle Laczkoski
Milford Daily News
Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:02 UTC
When police knocked on Donna Lemire's door late Tuesday night and told her to leave, it was not an April Fool's joke.

A passing storm brought torrential downpours and lightning, which struck outside her building in the Shadowbrook Condominium complex around 11:30 p.m., causing a water pipe to burst and flames to erupt from the third floor ceiling.

Fire Lt. Mark Nelson said a lightning bolt struck a tree outside 17 Shadowbrook Lane, traveled into the ground and through Lemire's building.



Image
©Rachel Juzapavicus
A lightning strike Tuesday night at 17 Shadowbrook Lane in Milford shattered the window of this car, started a fire and burst a water pipe at the condo complex.

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Cloud Lightning

Malaysia: Soccer player struck dead by lightning


NST Online
Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:54 UTC
A man died after he was struck by lightning while playing football at theSekolah Kebangsaan Tengku Bendahara field in Kodiang, Kedah yesterday.

In the 7pm incident, Mohd Khairon Fazdli Md Isa, 27, a heavy machine operator, was playing with friends at the field when the lightning struck.
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Cloud Lightning

India: 6 die, 6 injured in lightning strike


ENS
Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:30 UTC
Six persons died and six others sustained injuries in lightning strike in different parts of the State on Tuesday.

Four persons, including a woman, died at two places in Ganjam district. One person died at Tilisingi under Bhanjanagar police limits while three of a family died in Keshpur under Khallikote police limits when lightning struck.

In Parlakhemundi, one person died and four others were injured in Zagili Street under Ward no 1 under Parlakhemundi municipality. The deceased has been identified as T Sabara Raju of the same area.
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning kills 4 soldiers, wounds 59 in Sri Lanka


ABC News
Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:28 UTC
Lightning has killed four soldiers and wounded 59 others during military training in north central Sri Lanka, the military said.

"When troops were gathered for the training at the training camp in Katukaleyawa in Polonnaruwa, all of a sudden lightning struck the place and four soldiers were killed and 59 injured," military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
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Cloud Lightning

Bolts Of Blue Lightning Thrusting Upward And Other Weird Lightning Explained


Science Daily
Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:17 UTC
The mechanism behind different types of lightning may now be understood, thanks to a combination of direct observation and computer modeling reported by a team of researchers from New Mexico Tech and Penn State.



lightning strikes
©iStockphoto/Martin Fischer
Most people see lightning strikes that go from clouds to the ground, but some lightning goes upward, forming blue jets and gigantic jets. Perhaps the most dangerous lightning appears as "bolts from the blue" -- lightning that begins upward, but then moves sideways and then downward to hit the ground as much as three miles from a thunderstorm.


"Our explanation provides a unifying view of how lightning escapes from a thundercloud," the researchers report in the April edition of Nature Geoscience.

Most people see lightning strikes that go from clouds to the ground, but some lightning goes upward, forming blue jets and gigantic jets. Perhaps the most dangerous lightning appears as "bolts from the blue" -- lightning that begins upward, but then moves sideways and then downward to hit the ground as much as three miles from a thunderstorm.
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Cloud Lightning

Lightning strikes governed by moving cloud layers

Catherine Brahic
New Scientist
Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:58 UTC
Zeus's weapon has been cracked. Researchers say they have finally worked out how lightning forms, how it escapes the storm cloud that fosters it - and whether it will form a "bolt from the blue".

The theory, which is backed by a computer model, is the first to explain all of the different types of lightning that exist - from regular cloud-to-ground lightning, to gigantic "jet lightning" that escapes up through the top of clouds, to "bolts from the blue", which can strike the ground under blue skies, several kilometres away from a thunderstorm.
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Bulb

Ball lightning bamboozles physicist

Anna Salleh
ABC
Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:19 UTC
Scientific theories and experiments have failed to convince a physicist what's behind the mysterious natural phenomenon of ball lightning.

Emeritus Professor Bob Crompton of the Australian National University gave a presentation in Canberra this week on the latest scientific investigations into ball lightning, something once considered as likely as UFOs.

"I don't believe there is any satisfactory explanation so far," says Crompton for these small bright lights that appear after a lightning strike.



Image
©Unknown
Ball Lightning

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Bizarro Earth

Strange Winter-Tornadoes Tear Through Midwest, Kill One

Carrie Antlfinger
Associated Press
Mon, 07 Jan 2008 00:51 UTC


©Mark Schiefelbein/AP
Lightning flashes through the sky as neighbors look through the wreckage of a home destroyed by a tornado near Niangua, Missouri, on Monday, January 7, 2008.


A freak cluster of tornadoes raked across an unseasonably warm U.S. Midwest, demolishing houses, knocking railroad cars off their tracks, and even temporarily halting justice in one courthouse.

Record temperatures were reported across much of the country Monday, and storms continued to pummel the nation's midsection as darkness fell. More warmth and storms were in store for Tuesday.
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Cloud Lightning

Unlocking the mystery behind lightning's puzzling friend


NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Tue, 07 Jun 2005 08:49 UTC
Sprites are likely generated by major lightning strikes.

Giant red blobs, picket fences, upward branching carrots, and tentacled octopi - these are just a few of the phrases used to describe sprites - spectacular, eerie flashes of colored light high above the tops of powerful thunderstorms that can travel up to 50 miles high in the atmosphere.

Sprites, so-named by a University of Alaska scientist inspired by the creatures in Shakespeare's "The Tempest," have been observed since the 1800s, though rarely visible from the ground. Aircraft pilots began reporting sightings of sprites in the 1950s and '60s, but they were not formally identified until 1989 when the Space Shuttle (STS-34) recorded the flashes as it passed over a thunderstorm in northern Australia. While many theories have been offered on the cause of this rare phenomenon, new NASA-funded research is settling the mystery and helping to determine the driving force behind these marvel displays of light.



©ISUAL Project, NCKU/NSPO, Taiwan
This dramatic, garishly colored image was captured with a low-light level camera on June 7, 2001. It shows what appears to be a "burning tree", or red sprite, above the National Cheng Kung University campus in Tainan City, Taiwan.

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