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I recently moved to the Charlotte area and right now we're in the midst of an AWESOME lightening show... For the past (about) 40 minutes the sky has been lighting up... It's incredible.
Just wanted to share.
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I love a good thunderstorm. My favorite of all weather!
My best friend's favorite weather is "partly cloudy", which I think is a dumb choice. But she says it is like getting two weathers in one.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: I love a good thunderstorm. My favorite of all weather!
My best friend's favorite weather is "partly cloudy", which I think is a dumb choice. But she says it is like getting two weathers in one.
She must really love being in the eye of a hurricane, then. Can't really get much more of a contrast in weather.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Thunderstorms are the bombdiggity. I live on a lake and one of my favorite past times is to go out in my kayak to watch a storm approach.
And I'm definately more of a one weather at a time guy. Partly cloudy is annoying because it tends to be hot and humid. If it's all sunny, I just stay inside or go to the beach, and if its all cloudy or raining, I take long walks and sit outside on my park bench. Partly cloud sucks.
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I actually managed to make a 45 second clip of a lightning storm that I was able to capture with my camera. If anybody is interested send me an email or PM and I'll send it to them! Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Ou, sweet Earendil! I think my address is in my profile, so if you get a chance I'd love to see it!
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I lived in the lightning capitol of Florida. For some reason, the area around Kissimmee, FL gets more lightning strikes than anywhere else in the state -- I think it has to do with being sandwiched between two major bodies of water.
Anyway, lightning was fun to watch, but it played heck with everything electrical that we owned. I had really great surge supression and a well-grounded system too. And I lost every electrical appliance I owned at least once in 10 years. The time the cable got hit was especially dramatic.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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Dr Strangelove - Have you ever seen the lightening hit the water? One year at camp in NH, my unit was in the Algonquins (the one platform tent unit). The coolest thing about being in this unit was the fact that there was a small lake behind us. In the middle of a HUGE storm, my tent mates and I were peeking out the back towards the lake... Next thing you know the LOUDEST and BRIGHTEST event happened - a bolt had hit the lake! I've still not seen/heard anything like that...
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Western North Carolina thunderstorms are the best I've ever seen We had some that shook the house pretty hard when I was little.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Where I live, we haven't had a real thunderstorm in a year or two. The last storm didn't really rain much. But the sky was this really dark purple and every so often the sky would just light up and scare the heck out of the little kids. (This was at my family picnic, my cousins range from 30 to 2) The older ones stodd outside and kept pointing out green patches in the sky. We convinced two or three kids there'd be a tornado Posts: 1164 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Tonight there was a storm around here. Some nice lightening. Me and some friends went to see a movie and I dropped them off at the front of the theater then went to park. I specifically parked far away so I could get a good walk in the rain in. It was wonderful.
cmc, yes, I have . One time I was standing on the porch in the middle of a huge storm and I had my hand resting on the gutter. A bolt hit the lake and man was it bright! The electricity got into the gutter and threw my hand off. It was pretty neat. I went inside the screen after that.
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Dr Strangelove: I specifically parked far away so I could get a good walk in the rain in. It was wonderful.
A man after my own heart! I love being out in the rain, but it is always so solitary. No one wants to walk with me, smell the good rain smells, feel the soft mist and raindrops, and experience the joy of breathing underwater.
I can barely keep myself indoors in a good rain, especially a storm.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I have been struck by lightning three times.
Not directly, fortunately. Being hit by the bolt tends to kill you or make you stupid and give you memory issues. But! When lightning discharges into a nearby object (and then into the ground), it will zap you through the ground if you're anywhere close to the impact point. It tends to inspire momentary flight. The first time it happened, I apparently got some real distance. I don't remember the bolt itself, but I regained awareness only to find that I was sort of .. well, flying through the air and landing on my back.
Wheeee!
Anyway, my favorite lightning types (and we have many types, here) are the long, crackling, soft arcs -- especially when they are made into a bright, vibrant purple color by the surrounding atmosphere.
Also lovely is the phenom known as 'heat lightning' -- you'll know it when you see it, since it makes absolutely no noise.
Less friendly is negative lightning. Unbelieveably loud, even at a distance. Travels horizontally for long distances. Massively destructive.
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Wow. Ok, now I'm jealous. I'd like to meet the person who took THAT photograph. I've got some good lightning photos myself, but nothing compares to that photo. On a personal note, or second thought, I'm actually glad I never came that close. The odds of surviving a hit, without injury, while that close seem pretty slim.
Here's where I should point out that more than 80% of lightning victims survive, but the MAJORITY of those survivors suffer some form of long term injury.
Samprimary, did you have any injuries from those 3 hits?
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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In all three of them, my feet went wonky and I had annoying pins and needles sensations for a long time afterward.
The strongest hit also resulted in me being very, very, terribly confused. For the first five minutes, I wasn't even making sense of people asking me the timeless 'how many fingers am I holding up' question.
No permanent damage, though! I was exactly as much of a spaz before the hit.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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We get violent and loud thunder and lightning storms here. They'll last for hours and hours and they'll sit over our house for a good half hour or so. The rain tends to be so loud that there's no point in watching tv - it gets drowned out by the rain. The lightning is even louder - I can feel it shaking the house. It hurts my ears!
Last March, my niece and nephew were at our place sans parents, and a really loud lightning storm started up in the middle of the night, and it was LOUD. My nephew started crying. I was the only one who heard him. So, I run to his room and lay down in his bed with him for a while and tell him all about lightning and how we're safe indoors. He didn't believe me for quite a while. Okay, nephew is only 5, so this is all understandable, ya know?
The next afternoon, another storm started up, so I took Ike and we went upstairs to the balcony and stood outside and watched the lightning show while the rain came down in torrents. Real monsoon weather, folks. The rain water couldn't drain fast enough, so we had six or eight inches of water in places in the front yard. Visibility was down to about a hundred yards.
He had a hoot.
Since then, he's asked a lot of questions about lightning and building design, all to ascertain our safety. He takes after his father in that regard. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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This mornings paper says they lost two kids up at Tahoe yesterday. It was probably a lightening strike in the water near where they were playing. It is awsome to watch, but out in the weather, or even worse out in the lake, is not the place to watch from.
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Don't watch IN or NEXT TO the Lake necessarily... conductivity and all... but watching from a safe spot = awesome.
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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We had some that shook the house pretty hard when I was little.
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