Spectacular lightning discharges lit the skies Saturday night, August 4-5. (Updated Image)
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One of many lightning bolts in a dry thunderstorm the night of July 4, 2012.
“Oh no,” I said, “here comes another storm!” It showed up as “small” on radar and I didn’t think much of it. What arrived, however, was one of nature’s natural fireworks shows, and in time to close out the July 4th holiday; the small thunderstorm came through dry and full of lightning. Most of the lightning was cloud-to-cloud and there were plenty of what I call “crawlers” — discharges that appear to move in branches across the bottoms of the clouds. I was caught by surprise! I love shooting photos of lightning, or, at the very least, trying to capture those images. This was the perfect opportunity — no rain to get in the way or ruin my lenses — but all my gear was stowed! I quickly gathered camera and tripod and headed to my sheltered observing post. It was a great show though, with a storm this active, I didn’t know where to aim for the best shots. Out of maybe 150 exposures, I got a good number with at least some streaks of lightning; out of those, I’d managed to get a couple of good images. Displayed here is the best of tonight’s bunch.
Strong storms swept through our area of Northern Ohio tonight setting off fireworks of the electrical kind. This is the best lightning shot I've ever made and I hope to do more and better. Fortunately I have two sheltered areas at home from which to shoot… and this powerful lightning bolt isn't as close as it may appear!
At 10:00 tonight we heard a low rumbling sound. I thought it was ambient sound effects on a TV show but it sounded like it might be coming from outdoors. I muted the TV and listened… more rumbling. I stepped outdoors into the cold, damp air. The overcast sky glowed the ugly red-orange of modern light-polluted suburbs, the night was quiet with little wind. I looked up, watched, and listened. Sure enough… a white flash lit the clouds directly overhead followed by the familiar low rumble of thunder. We've been hearing regular thunder for about an hour now! It's 38 degrees, quiet, misting, and there's a thunderstorm in progress as I write this! I guess it's spring, alright.
Image: National Weather Service
Update: Last night's storm went on 'til around midnight in our area ending with a crescendo of rain and thunder; the frequent booms startling me several times as I tried to fall asleep. Sadly a fire, apparently caused by a lightning strike, destroyed Cleveland's beautiful Euclid Avenue Congregational Church, A Romanesque building of Ohio sandstone dedicated at 9606 Euclid Avenue, in September 1887. Any portions of heat-weakend walls still standing will be demolished.
As I arrived at work the sky was darkening. Bright streaks of lightning connected clouds and ground. It was going to be an interesting morning! Soon after I entered the building the rains came. The intense downpour flooded the court garden and began to come into the building under the doors. We got about three inches of rain in around an hour! Then the lights clicked off and on… more than once… for about a second each time… deadly to computers! The recently-rebuilt server went down and stayed down twice — an indication that its backup power supply (UPS) had failed. After the second system stop I shut off the old UPS and moved the computer's power connections to a neighboring, known-good UPS. The usual glitches developed around the building; things that happen when the power is interrupted. There was only one PC fatality. Apparently the computer was booting up during one of the brief outages and a Windows file was corrupted. I hope I can repair the OS damage tomorrow without a full reinstall. Then Finance descended upon me: Inventory time! That led to a culling of obsolete and broken equipment for sale and disposal. Most of the stuff is of very little value and the costs associated with staff time will far exceed any money brought in by the sale of that crap. Policy rules, however: So it is written, so it shall be done.
Mom-in-Law needs more time in the hospital {duh!} and will be staying there a couple more days. She officially needs more time to recoup from the surgeries and be evaluated for post-hospital care {duh! and duh!}. Whew! I suppose even older folk vary as to how quickly they recover from any given medical procedure. But this sweet, frail elderly woman just showed no potential for going home the day after having her procedures. So good sense did prevail in the end and Mom-in-Law is staying in hospital where she belongs.
Late-Night P.S. — We had more storms tonight. While at home we had heavy rain around 8:30 or so with nearly constant lightning. Very impressive! As the storm (we were at the edge of a line of more powerful storms that swept through) passed, I looked out the west window. What should I see but clouds lit by occasional flashes of lightning and a large clearing at the fringes of the maelstrom. And in that clearing a star shown.
PhotonStopper 