Thunderbolts and Lightning
Posted on July 16, 2017 Posted by John Scalzi 20 Comments
So, this thunderstorm showed up today, and for about an hour there was nonstop thunder and lightning, so much so that I thought I might go out and see if I could capture some lightning in slow motion.
How did that turn out? Well:
I was pretty pleased with myself, I have to say. And then I came back inside before I got zapped.
Fun! I love taking pictures of weather!
Beautiful!
Magnifico!
If your skies clear there is a possibility of Northern Lights being visible in the Great Lakes and Northern Plains tonight.
Wow. The photo is stunning, and your lightning clip is pretty darned impressive. Well done & thank you!
Great picture.
I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango
Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me
Gallileo, Gallileo,
Gallileo, Gallileo,
Gallileo Figaro – magnifico
I’m given to understand that someone at OSU got zapped in the last couple of days, possibly during this same storm. Glad you decided discretion was the better part of valor.
Great pics!
My usual response to “You’re more likely to get hit by lightning than ____” is “I’ve been hit by lightning. Nearly got hit another time.” The time I did get hit was at an observatory in the Pyrenees, and it had bounced off the building before it hit me, so the only damage was that my wife yelled at me to come inside and I had to tell her about the previous time, which was when I’d been hiking in the Colorado mountains and the group I was with decided to run the last hundred yards to the top when the storm came in. (My companions had a bit of sparking between their hands and the rocks.) The more serious problem was that we were stuck at the observatory most of the day, because the gondola system shut down when the lightning hit, and there was a carload of schoolkids who were almost up to the top and spent a while getting very unhappy just hanging there before they could restart it again.
I’ll be out in Colorado again next week. My grandparents climbed Long’s Peak on their honeymoon back in 1919, though I doubt I’ll get much more adventurous than driving over the part you can reach by road, on the way to see elk in the national park.
That looks awesome! If you slow the video down further on YouTube, you can see the individual arcs being made :)
You came back inside before it hit you like a hammer… Goddamn?
With that headline, I thought you were responding to the uproar over the announcement that the next Doctor would be played by a woman! ;-)
> I was pretty pleased with myself… And then I came back inside before I got zapped.
And the rest of us were pretty pleased with yourself for that, too.
Nice. What did you use to do that?
My Samsung S7 Edge.
That’s really nifty. Also: not getting hit by lightning is a life-enhancing decision.
“Hold my Coke Zero and watch this!”
Good photos, liked the video, could have done without Queen (and the Muppets, godsdamnit) doing “Bohemian Rhapsody” in my head first thing in the morning, though. Clearly I need to read your blog later in the day.
Those midwestern storms are crazy
Had a similar experience here in Budapest a couple years ago, but only for about 25 minutes. Non-stop “rolling thunder” with no silence at all. Torrential rain. Exhilarating (so long as you’re safely inside)!