© Peter LowensteinClose lightning strike with slow motion
On 14 November there was a violent afternoon thunderstorm with hail and 90 millimeters of torrential rain which persisted into the night. At about quarter past three there was a very close lightning bolt which struck a pole which had just one week earlier been installed by the national telephone company to bring a fiber internet connection to my home. The pole is situated on the opposite side of the road less than 50 meters from the front of the house.
The accompanying video, which begins at normal speed then plays in three slow-mo rates of x0.5, x0.25 and x0.125 and ends at normal speed again, shows the brief but intense lightning flash descending towards the pole which is just below the field of view. It was accompanied by a sharp click of static electricity and almost immediately afterwards by a very loud report which could be felt and shook the house. This was followed by a deep rumbling sound which persisted for almost twenty seconds. An electromagnetic pulse was generated which was strong enough to affect the electronics in the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10 being used to film the storm and produced strange bright histogram shaped patterns in the two frames which captured the strike. The video thumbnail image has been processed to remove these.
The fiber optic internet connection was unaffected by the strike but induced high voltages damaged the LNB in my rooftop satellite TV dish and connected decoder.
Comment: In July this year Gauteng province was hit by two tornadoes in 24 hours.