The Virtual Times: Unusual Weather Stories
The Virtual Times
Unusual Weather Related Stories

     Subject: Some dramatic ball lightning episodes
        Date: 21 Mar 1996 11:53:43 -0500 
        From: chaston111@aol.com (Chaston111)
   Newsgroup: sci.geo.meteorology

Following up on the recent postings on ball lightning, the following are
some documented cases of interest.

In January 1984, ball lightning entered a Russian passenger aircraft, and
according to the Russian news release, "flew above the heads of the
stunned passengers", subsequently leaving through the tail section.  The
ball lightning left two holes in the plane.

Here is some of the text from the news release:  "Suddenly...a fireball
about four inches in diameter appearead on the fuselage in front of the
crew's cockpit.  It disappeared with a deafening noise, but re-emerged
several seconds later in the passengers' lounge, after piercing in an
uncanny way through the air-tight metal wall.  The fireball slowly flew
above the heads of the stunned passengers.  In the tail section of the
airliner it divided into two glowing crescents which then joined together
again and left the plane almost noiselessly."

While repairing equipment aboard the aircraft, mechnainics discovered two
holes - one in the front of the fuselage and another in the tail section.

Ball lightning has been known to squeeze itself through a keyhole or under
a door, subsequently reassuming its ball shape about the size of a
basketball when inside the house.  It has also seemed to be attracted to
anything animate, which is why we have stories of ball lightning "chasing"
people and animals, imparting a static-electricity type of charge when
catching up with humans or pets.

A particularly intereting ball lightning episode occurred during the
explosion of Mount St. Helens in Washington state in 1980.  Observers
reported the following, from about 100 miles southeast of the volcano:
"The lightning was in ball form, streaking towards the ground, connected
neither with the cloud nor with the ground.  It was like a group of balls
all going in the same direction."  Closer to the volcano, at about 29
miles north of it, an eye-witness reported, "After the cloud passed
overhead, lots of lightning started at some 600 to 800 feet in the air,
and formed big balls, big as a pickup, and just started rolling across the
ground and bouncing."

Ball lightning's life-span lasts from a few seconds to perhaps over a
minute.

One of the strangest stories I am personally aware of happened when I was
the Meteorologist-in-Charge of the NWS Office at Rochester, New York.
While working the day shift during a day with considerable thunderstorm
activity, an aquaintance who was a commercial airline pilot came into the
office and told me about a ball lightning encounter his aircraft
passengers experienced while in descent to the airport through a
thunderstorm.  A "ball of sparks" about the size of a basketball entered
the aircraft apparently through an engine intake, moved into the fuselage,
and proceeded to a chase a flight attendant up and down the aisle.  She
was screaming as she tried to outrun the ball lightning.  The lightning
apparently dissipated quickly before striking her.

I documented these and a lot of other highly unusual weather stories in
the book, "Terror From the Skies".

Except for one photograph a colleague gave me, which he believes may be a
rare picture of ball lightning, there is no significant photographic,
including video, documentation of ball lightning.  It is infrequent and
lasts typically for under a minute, so that you or I would have to have
ready access to a camcorder or camera to catch it while underway.  With
the proliferation of video cameras in our society, we will hopefully have
some good visuals of ball lightning underway, which should help us in
understanding the phenomenon.

---Pete Chaston

     Subject: Re: Ball lightning
        Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 00:57:37 GMT 
        From: henkl@noord.bart.nl (Henk Lankamp)
Organization: none 
  Newsgroups: sci.geo.meteorology


In July last year there was a ball lightning just some 50 meters of my
home. I didn't see it myself, but both my wife and son did. They
didn't see a 'normal' lightning preceding the ball. The ball was just
above the houses and disappeared within a few seconds with a loud BANG
(sound of an explosion), I heard the sound myself, and (my wife and
son told me) the ball was red coloured and had a diameter of a
football. The ball didn't move, it just exploded and disappeaerd. The
ball lightning caused some damage on TV-equipment and fuses in the
houses nearby. The ball was seen by a lot off other people as well, as
stated in the newspaper the next day.
At the moment there was a small (unexpected) thunderstorm moving
across the city. There were only a few vertical lightnings before and
afterwards. There was no rain at the moment of the lightning.

Henk Lankamp, Groningen, the Netherlands
henkl@noord.bart.nl

___

Henk Lankamp
Groningen, the Netherlands
henkl@noord.bart.nl

   http://www.noord.bart.nl/~henkl/weather.html



     Subject: Close Encounter With Ball Lightning
        Date: 12 May 1996 01:38:49 GMT 
        From: jcracing@ix.netcom.com(Jim Conlin )
Organization: Netcom 
  Newsgroups: sci.geo.meteorology


Sometime in August, 1995, my twin nine year old daughters saw something
that sounds a lot like ball lightning.

They both happened to be looking out our rear window watching a violent
afternoon thunderstorm (near Columbus, OH) when they saw what they
describe as a bright ball with streaks of lightning coming out of it
above the rooflines of the neighboring houses. While they do not agree
on the distance away (one thought the ball was above the backyard while
the other though it was over the next block or further), they do agree
that it was motionless and remained for three to five seconds.

I was talking on the telephone with their older sister at the time and
since she was using a portable (home radio type) phone, the
transmission was interrupted and we were cut off. Calling them back
immediately, I found the twins hysterical from what they has seen. I
initially discounted their descriptions as inaccurate or misidentified.
However, nine months later their descriptions have not changed and the
experience is clearly apart from anything they had seen before or have
since. I have come to beleive that what they saw was the phenomenon
sometimes called ball lightning and, given the elusiveness and
controversy surrounding the subject, would be happy to share further
details of their experience to individuals or agencies studying the
matter.

Curiously enough, this event occurred only a little over a month after
our home received a weak but direct lightning strike. As a matter of
fact, I happened to be touching the garage door's steel guiding rail
when the house was struck resulting in a burn to my left palm and sore
muscles in my arms the next day. I can provide accute details of that
experience as well including the moment before the strike during which
the charge was building up.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Jim Conlin

P.S.: If there is a more appropriate newsgroup for this post, please
advise.




    Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 20:53:28 -0500
    From: Mike Duffy < mike.duffy@sympatico.ca> (personnal communication)
      To: larry@hsv.com
 Subject: Unusual lightning

I saw your request for unusual weather in the sci.geo.meteorology
usenet group. Here is a description of some very unusual lightning
I observed several years ago:

I was driving eastwards from Toronto to Ottawa one evening in the
middle of the summer. The sunset (behind me) seemed to go on for
a very long time. The whole sky took on a very attractive and
unusual shade of purple/pink, and after a while I remarked to
myself that because of a low uniform cloud deck the pink glow
seemed just as bright in all directions. This went on for over
an hour, until I rather abrupty realized that it really should
be getting darker. At first, I just assumed the lighted sky ahead
was due to the proximity of a city, until I remembered that I had
already gone past the Peterborough turnoff. I checked out of my
side windows and found that the pink glow was the same everywhere.

I actually got the little skin crawling sensation on the back of
my neck that happens when something is amiss. I pulled my car
over at a rest stop in order to investigate and after I got out
of the car I noticed a crackling sound which I thought at first
was due to a faulty insulator on a nearby hydro line. When I looked
up it was then that I first noticed that the entire sky was covered
by very fine lightning which extended from horizon to horizon in
all directions. The individual lightning "bolts" were so fine that
they appeared almost like spider webbing, hugging the contours of
the bottom of the cloud deck as they spread. I was completely
dumbstruck for several minutes as the realization sunk in that
this display was what had been causing the pink glow in the clouds,
and that I had been driving under it for over an hour without
noticing the fine lightning strands.

After a while noticed that there was an ordering of the display.
The lightning was oriented in distinct east-west bands, with a
clear area in between each band. Each band was organized as an
array of separate tree-shaped structures with the "trunk" pointed
south. The entire band "moved" northwards by each tree sending out
new feelers towards the north, some of which eventually would
strengthen and become brighter. At the same time, the southern
trunks would "pop" out of existence, splitting the tree into two
or more smaller ones. I determined the cloud deck to be about
1/3 to 1/2 sound-seconds in altitude by correlating extra loud "pop"s
in the general crackling noise to the dissappearance of the
major trunk-like structures. It took about 20 seconds for one line
of lightning "trees" to move out and be replaced by another one.
At the zenith, each band of lightning (and corresponding clear area
together) distended about 15 degrees of arc. Following is an attempt
to use ASCII to draw this. Imagine your feet pointing South with your
head tilted back so you're looking straight up:

                          North is behind you

          v v v v  v v v v  v v v v  v v v v  v v v v  v v v v
           V   V    V   V    V   V    V   V    V   V    V   V
            \ /      \ /      \ /      \ /      \ /      \ /
             Y        Y        Y        Y        Y        Y
             I        I        I        I        I        I
             I        I        I        I        I        I


< East                                                            West >


          v v v v  v v v v  v v v v  v v v v  v v v v  v v v v
           V   V    V   V    V   V    V   V    V   V    V   V
            \ /      \ /      \ /      \ /      \ /      \ /
             Y        Y        Y        Y        Y        Y
             I        I        I        I        I        I
             I        I        I        I        I        I


The lightning bolts were not regimented as precisely as this. Within
each band, some were ahead of their neighbours, but the clear area
between each band was completely devoid of anything. Each bolt was NOT
symettric as I have drawn here. The whole structure moved north by new
"feelers" constantly growing out of the "v"s in my picture while trunks
would eventually "pop" off as the clear band encroached on it. The
uniform cloud deck was sort of bumpy-bottomed. The lightning bolts
seemed to go as high as they could without touching the clouds.

There was no precipitation whatsoever. After I watched for about
45 minutes I decided to get on with my trip, and I continued to see
this unusual display for about two more hours until I drove past
the bottom of the cloud deck.

I've spoken about this at times with meteorologists where I used to
work at Environment Canada. None of them has ever heard tell of such
a thing. However, there was one old asian gentleman (a systems
engineer) who said he saw a similar display once.

Of course, now I never travel without a camera.



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