So I was standing in my kitchen tonight in a raging thunderstorm. I had my back to the window, which was shut, and suddenly a massive lightning strike hit with instantaneous thunder. I felt the back of my shirt move, as if there was some sort of concussion wave, and all the dishes in my kitchen rattled and moved. I was afraid at first that one of my windows broke it was so violent. All in all, it was COOL!!!! 8)
That's a real wake-up call, isn't it. :D
I had that happen while sitting on James Hill's porch. The bolt must've hit the power pole at the corner of the house. The chair I was in lept from the floor, my hair stood on end and I was tingling all over. We went inside of the house. :D
Did you lose your appetite? I didn't. :D
Ed said while I was away, there were 1700 lightning strikes in Sebastian immediate area, in 3 hours. :o :o
Lose my appetite? That's just crazy talk! :D
Crazy things happen to people after eating duck eggs ! smiley_roller . My neighbor had his arm out his pickup window and the storm was still 20 miles away and lightning hit his pickup,smoked his watch and left 4 black spots on the highway from the tires . He is lucky , so are you !
I was out "trying" to photograph that storm Paschale. ;)
Cool huh? ;D 8)
That big storm we had a couple weeks ago took out my Grandma's modem, fried it! :-\
This evening we set up on a house we're going to start monday. It's only the second house I've ever roofed that had lightening rods and cable running across the top of the roof.
I hate storms. I sometimes want to go hide when it gets bad.
I have lightning rods on my house roof and on the barn. The ones on the house are old wrought iron ones that are twisted and they have glass balls on them. Supposedly they light up when hit by lightning.
I've had 2 hits real close to the house. One was very early in the morning and was a flash and a boom. Must have hit the telephone poll outside the house. It fied my computer.
The other one hit a dusk to dawn light outside the barn. The current went back to the house and blew fuses out of the fuse box.
That is a weird sensation. One struck a utility pole half mile from where I worked. The air felt heavy, almost tense and we were wondering what was going to happen. When it hit, there was a very bright flash, the old building shook violently and the air smelled of ozone. Glad you were not hurt.
The glass balls on the rods at my great grandmothers house were busted, I was told this was "proof" that the rods had at least once done the job.
Several years ago we were trying to get some high fascia done on a roof before a storm hit. There had been a "miscommunication" between me and my sweet sawyer down on the deck and I returned the board. It started to rain and she told me to come down. I somewhat tersely told her to cut another and send it up...Thats when the lightning hit a nail head right in front of me. I took the hint and immediately went down to apologize :D.
In the eighties, I had a number of fir tree's with the top dead or dieing. I call the state forester and met her late one after noon, got in her pick-up and drove to were the damaged trees are. When we were about 50 yards away, she said that she knew the cause. Asked me if I could see the spiral tore in the tree bark in the top third of the tree. Said that what lightning does.
Years ago my brother and I were sitting in the dining room of my parent's house when we heard the loudest crack of lightning we've ever experienced. Well, we went outside to see if any trees in our yard or the neighbor's yard were hit. After getting around to the front of the house one of our neighbors was carrying something towards us. Turns out he saw it hit our flagpole out front, and it split the wooden ball on top into about six pieces. We still have a new brass ball to go on there that we've never put up yet ::)
Few years back, we were sittin at my grandparents house, in the kitchen. A bolt of lightning hit the flu, and a fireball traveled down the flu and danced across the stove top and disappeared. I suppose some form of electricity. Didn't hurt nothin, just a bit scary.
Like Ron W, we had lightning rods and glass bulbs on them on the roof top. Everyone around these parts had them on old houses and barns at one time. Most everyone has gotten rid of them now.
In the last 3 years I've had lightning knock out the antenna on the satellite dish. A $75 part and it just looks like a hollowed block of aluminum with a tiny gold plated pin inside. The broke one don't even look broken or burned. :-\
I've been a power company lineman for 33 years, the stuff i've seen lightning do is nothing short of incredible. Someone figure out a way to harness it, they can shove all that foreign oil right back where it came from!
You got that right ;D
Dad and went fishing at camp after a wicked storm blew in off Lake Superior. Camp is on an inland lake. There were bits and pieces of white pine ranging from needles and small limbs to big slivered chunks floating all over the lake. There were several trees that were hit. Some strikes only left seams others completely exploded the tree. We didn't catch any fish either ;D That same storm raised the lake level by six inches. Before the storm the dock was out of the water that far after the water was right up to the stringers. There was an empty frozen OJ concentrate can on the deck that overflowed from the downpour. We had a little basswood get struck right by the house a few years ago. It brought me right out of bed standing at attention. It did the satellite reciever in although the repair people said it wasn't lightning that made it quit working ::) It worked fine the night before and never worked again :)
I had a lightning strike a few years ago that tripped half the breakers in my panel. It melted the insulation on the phone line to the house. Melted a hole in one water heater element. Zapped several other appliances. I was in bed at the time, it shook the house and appeared to have struck near the bed room window. :o
We have a white oak in our woods that was struck a couple of years ago, after a closer look I could see that it had been hit once before and had healed over somewhat. It is near 2 or 3 cottonwoods that are untouched. I had always been told that cottonwoods are more susceptable to lightning strikes, kinda like lighting magnets.
Pretty cool watching a T-storm cruise through at night.
Last summer my Dad was picking a few strawberries from his garden ahead of an approaching storm. He had enough for supper, and with the storm a few miles away, was heading for the house, when lightning apparently struck a steel post about 10 feet away from him. He remembers a flash and boom. When he next know anything, he was on his hands and knees picking berries, and the storm was about there. He had a headache and was nearly deaf for a couple of days, and his skin was kind of drawn and wrinkly. His hearing got better, but he still has some hearing loss. :( Since that was his SECOND close call with a strike, I kid him about acting like the lighting strike prone guy in the movie The Great Outdoors when a storm comes up. (Also I don't stand too close to him!)
Here's some info about the world lightning champion.
"Roy Cleveland Sullivan was a Forest Ranger in Virginia who had an
incredible attraction to lightning... or rather it had an attraction
to him. Over his 36-year career as a ranger, Sullivan was struck by
lightning seven times - and survived each jolt, but not unscathed.
When struck for the first time in 1942, he suffered the loss of a nail
on his big toe. Twenty-seven years passed before he was struck again,
this time by a bolt that singed his eyebrows off. The next year, in
1970, another strike burned Sullivan's left shoulder. Now it looked as
though lightning had it out for poor Roy, and people were starting to
call him The Human Lightning Rod. He didn't disappoint them. Lightning
zapped him again in 1972, setting his hair on fire and convincing him
to keep a container of water in his car, just in case. The water came
in handy in 1973 when, seemly just to taunt Sullivan, a low-hanging
cloud shot a bolt of lightning at his head, blasting him out of his
car, setting his hair on fire and knocking off a shoe. The sixth
strike in 1976 injured his ankle, and the seventh strike in 1977, got
him when he was fishing, and put him in the hospital for treatment of
chest and stomach burns. Lightning may not have been able to kill Roy
Sullivan, but perhaps the threat of it did. He took his own life in
1983. Two of his lightning-singed ranger hats are on display at
Guinness World Exhibit Halls."
I lived in Edmonton for many years when I was a kid and they have some dandy lightning storms there. I thought they were very cool. I didnt have the respect for them I should have. I used to sneak outside and watch from any vantage point I could with out getting wet. I was hiding in a great big cardboard box in the park accross the street one afternoon during a massive storm when lightning hit a powerpole not more than fifty yards from me. The transformer landed about twenty yards from my box , my ears rang for several hours after and I still get a tad spooked when there is serious lighning happening :o
That glass ball on the lightning rod ............well ...... when it is broke don't have nuttin to do with lightnin ......ifn it is broke it means that some boy is a good shot with a BB/pelet gun or a dmn good shot with a sling shot.
Quote from: Percy on May 09, 2005, 09:36:40 AM
I lived in Edmonton for many years when I was a kid and they have some dandy lightning storms there.
A good friend of mine grew up in Edmonton--he said the lightning storms were pretty amazing. He said you could see those babies from miles away, rolling in from the prairie. I love a good lightning storm, as long as I'm not in a cardboard box, 50 yards away from a hit. ;)
A few years back I noticed 5 beautiful white oak trees did not come out of their winter snooze. I consulted with my district forester thinking a blight might be encroaching on my woods. He took one look and said 'Lightning'. He showed me the signs of it hitting the centermost tree and arcing to the others. The trees made good firewood.
QuoteThat glass ball on the lightning rod ............well ...... when it is broke don't have nuttin to do with lightnin ......ifn it is broke it means that some boy is a good shot with a BB/pelet gun or a dmn good shot with a sling shot.
If I remember right it was my youngest great uncle who told me of the "proof", reckon I bought it :D.
It did start one of those rounds of reminescing about that old homeplace and the stories though. During one storm when my parents generation was small my uncle had gone to the privy and was heading to the back porch at a trot, Granny was rocking on the back porch (my great granny)....when a bolt of lightning came down and knocked him flat. I always thought granny had seen some times, the change from mules to tractors and cars came on her watch, she was around for 2 world wars, man first flew, and we reached the moon, alot of changes in one lifetime. Oh, my uncle's injuries didn't at first appear too bad, he's now a Phd, so it obviously did some serious internal damage. Many moons later my cousin and I were in that same yard, up a tree playing hide and seek and we were well hid, the storm wasn't going to bring us down, no sir. The lightning hitting the power pole right next door at my aunt's did do the job :o
We got struck here about a month ago, took out the tv dish and the modem. Haven't missed the dish and replaced the modem, but the screen has been kinda pink ever since, anyone know what's up?
If the screen is pink on your TV then the RGB driver board took a hit. This is the board that is connected to the back of the neck of the CRT. Sometimes you can adjust the color back. There is high voltage on that board so be careful.
The end of the sat dish that keeps smoking is called a LNB. There is a high frequency amplifier in it and a down converter to convert the 5 GHz sat signal down to 455 MHz so that coax can be used. The wedge shape is called a horn antenna. The gold pin is where the signal is received to the amplifier.
Two years ago we had lightning strike the soft maple in front of our house. You can still see where the bark was blown off. The tree is still alive. It literally spot welded our dish receiver to the top of our refridgerator. Parts inside the box were vaproized on the circuit board. I had to chisle it off the fridge. It also smoked the modem in my iMac.
Jason
One of the stories my dad's told about his early childhood in the U.P. is about a massive hailstorm that came through one summer. Apparently, the hail was just huge. Well, everyone ducked for cover, but someone in the family was thinking, and as soon as the storm passed over, everyone was charged with picking up as much hail as they could. They then put it in the ice cream maker, and handchurned some ice cream on the spot! 8) Now that's some resourceful thinking! No wonder I talk about food all the time--it's in my genes! ;)
On two occassions I've had to walk over half a mile to my house in the middle of lightening storms. Both times just about had me ready for some clean drawers. The storm that really got my attention (like the other one didn't :o) had really low clouds with lots of horizontal lightening; in retrospect it was pretty spectacular.
Once I was on a 2 to 3 acre pond fishing for crappie and a storm came up fast. Because of the fish were biting good, I kept staying "just one more fish". All of a sudden, a huge bolt of lightening struck a dead tree on the edge of the pond and blew it up, pieces of wood flew all over me.
I swear I had the canoe up to planning speed getting off the pond... :o
Wow it sounds like everyone has had some close calls . Being stuck in a open area must be the worse . Neighbor lost 5 beef cows standing under a big oak tree from a lightning strike . Instantly killed them all . Thats intersting about the glass balls on the lightning rods too.
most of the big oaks in our open feilds have been hit, and im sure they get hit dozens of times a year. we have one old one on a hill we cleard that has a few spirals of bark burned off clear to the ground. interesting every year the tree has a new scar.
Last winter we had a lightning-snow storm and something along the way was hit. Burnt out the main 220 breaker, the $365 special breaker for the hot tub, and the whole mother board on the hot tub.
I dont sit in the tub in the rain any more!
A friend of mine decided he wanted a yard light in the front of his house. He put up a nice conduit line to protect the line, secure the whole thing nice and neat. He put it up in a nice big oak tree out front. LIghtning hit that thing, cut a nice jag all the way down it to the ground, burnt out every switch and socket like butter that was on that line. Fire dept came out and put the little bit of fire out and did their investigation... Did you know its illegal to connect electricity up to a tree? Either did he! Apparently his wiring skills were a bit under code as well. :D
I think I've posted this on the forum before, I hope not on this thread. Got a great memory, its just short.
I ran a couple of RF glue machines while working in shops. They work like a small fm radio station but instead of an antenna they pass the signal through a plate, through the gluelines in the panel, to a ground plate on the other face of the panel. It excites the water molecules in the glue and kicks out a glued up panel in under a minute. Whenever I was running oak I would have to turn down the output or it would trip the breakers in the machine, oak seems to be a very good conductor compared to other woods.
We had a heckuva storm last night, the dog didn't come home till daylight, it hailed hard in town and lightning caught one house there on fire.
Thanks for the heads up on the monitor Jason. I'll get my slingshot ready for the only kind of tv adjustments I'm capable of...maybe I should otta take it to the shop. It is kind of like looking at the world through rose colored glasses tho' 8)
I think Don P explanation there about oak makes good sense now why lightning really can blow oak trees apart like going through a woodsplitter . Amazing power
My grandfather worked some summers in the Dakotas and Minn. in the early 1900's. He claimed the Swedes he encountered there were the toughest people he could imagine. He said on several occasions men on a riding plow and team were struck by lightning and knocked off the seat. Their reaction? They just got back up as soon as they could and chased down the team and resumed plowing! :o :o I always wondered if that was toughness or lack of good sense! ;)
I grew up in southern British Columbia and thought I had seen lightening storms I now live in Edmonton and the prairie storms are really something to see. Has anyone seen pics of lightening from an aircraft?
Haven't seen any pics of lightening from an aircraft but I have on many occasions witnessed it first hand. It is somewhat beautiful until you realize you have to descend through it to land :o
I've seen footage of lightning storms from space, taken from the Shuttle. You end up seeing lightning as round circles that pop up lighting up the clouds from the point where the lightning started. And when you see it from space, you see such a massive scale of the storm, and you realize that lightning is happening like popcorn popping--it's going on all over the place, constantly. Pretty cool!
A few weeks back, a 48 year old man was stuck and killed by lightning, while on the golf course in a nearby town. I was discussing this with my son on the phone last night, and my son informed me that the man's family is going to sue the golf course. I told my son that I thought it was ridiculous to sue the golf course because the man was struck by lightning there. My son then told me the reason for the law suit was.......the golf course owners REFUSED to let the ambulance drive across the turf to the man's location. They made the attendants ride the golf cart out, and they brought the body on the golf cart to the ambulance.
The real irony here is that the man that was killed was playing for a CHARITY event.
The lightning down here is pretty weak in my opinion compared to what I have seen up North. We get lightning - but not the barrages that I remember. Storms are much worse up North. No Tornados, no hurricanes, hardly any weather fronts. All part of the tropics. (No heat waves or cold fronts to speak of)
The total change in temperature down here during the year is about 20 degrees Fahrenheit High temperatures in the mountains is about 85, a really cold day is when the high is below 65. Normally it starts off the day about 65 and ends about 82. Any time it changes 5 degrees from thoses two temperatures everyone one is going around saying it is either really hot or cold. :D
The low temperature normally never occurs except when a flow of cold air runs down the continental divide in the middle of the winter. I actually wore my polar fleece for a while in December! (I am sure you all feel for me that it got down to a high of 65... )
Having been in places where it could be 75 in the morning and a blizzard in the 20s in the afternoon - this is definitely different.
The only thing stronger down here is the rain - there are times I swear you would drown if you got caught out in it. :o
When i was 14, some time ago. One summer night a lighting storm
hit the tree out side the house. my room light up like day light and our
neighbor said it knock him off the jon. The tree was a mess and pices
of it where all over the place. I had a rabbit cage right next to the tree
and that rabbit wouldn't move for a week. It finely came out and ran
around the yard. Then in 95 my son amd me were going down to dads
to help them move. On the way a rain storm came up and we both saw
lighting hit a tree in a field a mile away. I like watching storms at a safe
distance, but they sure showf us what power god has over us.
Sawwood
Back before the turn of the century, I had a lightning experience I'll never forget.
It was in 1970 and I commuted from Ft. Pierce to North Palm Beach every day in our VW to work at RCA Computer Division. On the way back home one evening, I ran into a storm so black that I couldn't see out of the windshield. I was following the line in the road until it got so bad that I couldn't even see that. All I wanted was to get off of the road.
I was approaching a curve in US-! that was called "dead-mans curve". I guess every town has one or two of those. This one was on the north side of the entrance to the "new" Port St. Lucie" development. The only way I knew I was on the road was that I couldn't feel ground under the tires. But, I knew that I could run out of road any minute.
All of a sudden a huge lightning bolt struck a pole on the other side of the ditch. The pole was in the corner of dressed piece of property containing a little block building that, I suppose, was used by the power company or maybe phone company for switch gear. There was a fairly wide drive that went across a culvert pipe laid in the ditch and the yard was clear if I could make it.
The lightning bolt hit the top of the pole and the pole exploded, sending pieces of burning wood a hundred feet into the road-way. The remainder of the pole was burning like a candle but the thickness of the storm soon covered it up.
My salvation was that the brilliant flash of the bolt had imprinted this picture on my minds eye. I was afraid to blink or it might go away. So, wide eyed, I followed the picture by estimating where in it I was, and made it across the culvert bridge and into the yard of the maintenance building. Afraid that there might be high power lines down I proceeded to where I thought the building was and parked the car to wait out the storm.
After about 10 minutes the rain subsided and the storm was gone. I found that I had not only made it into the yard but had parked alongside of the little building within 10 feet of its walls. The building had protected me from the high winds. All of this navigating was done blind to the actual terrain. Somebody was looking out for me. :)
Simiair to boating at dynamite point?
:D Yep! I guess I'm leading a "protected" life, eh? I love this "rainbrella" over my head. :D
I wanna here about 'dynamite point'. ;D ;D
Me too, with pics
Those days were slim pickin's. I didn't have a pot or a window. :D
This link should go to the story, if you have time (http://www.tomssaw.com/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1069461039,10366,) :)
Tom i rad that one when i first joined and it's as good now as it where before. :)
if snyone has the time go the toms website and spend some time there you win nor regret. ;D
But a rminder go take care off buiness fist becacuse it take all once you get there, and if the stores dont if them storiries done them this are just the right leanth thst it just resches up and holds ya to ypur chair
and about the time u just gota go real bad He makes ya laugh your fool head off,As you pidgin toe to the nearest out house 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
( note to self do not post on furum after taking your meds and sleeping pills then wake up
two hours later and try to type. :P)
Tom, I got there by your link on the forum. Good story :) But, I couldn't find a link from your home page. :( I tried to catch that little squirrel like the aligator, but he's too quick witted like yourself. ;D :D
Back in the 60's I worked in a papermill as a grinder man. The pulpwood grinders were powered by 500 horse power electric motors
There were six grinders three on each side of a pond. When an elctrical storm would come up we always shut down as the motors seemed to draw lightning, One time we had shut down and the head electrition had popped in and told us not to staet up till he saiod so. Along came the tour boss and told us to start up that he was boss
.So Earl was strarting one motor and I was starting another just as I threw the switch lightning struck. My motor wouldn't start tried again nothing. As I walked out of the shed the motor was in Earl was standing there with the electrition. They were pale looking as though they had seen a ghost.
The ghost was me.
When Earl started the first motor the electrition came to tell hin not to as the storm was comeing back down the river. they both said that the end of the grinder room that I was in was full of lightning and they thought sure I was dead.
Any way I suvived and the motor did't back then when top wages in the mill was $ 2.50 per hour it cost $8000 to rewire the motor.
The bad part was I never saw any lightning and missed all of the excitement except seeing the boss get chewed out.
Junkyard
You are one lucky fella, junkyard. I guess, if there was one thing worse than a bear that frightens me, it is lightning. :)
Swamp,
The squirrel is some more of Jeff's weird humor. I like it.
That area of the hole in the stump, the word allegories and the squirrel are all part of the link. It is just a joke that makes you follow the squirrel. When your cursor is in close proximity to the hole, click on it. DanG Jeff. I laugh every time I go to my website and see that Gator, dog and squirrel. I like it. :D :D
Tom,
Your rope swing story reminds me of when we was young'ns. In my uncle's barn there was a trapeze tied to the ceiling raftors. We would build a platform out of rectangular hay bales so we could jump out toward the stationary trapeze. Once we got the trapeze going we would swing as long as we could hang on. We used to play king of the trapeze and see it we could knock one another off and onto some loose hay underneath. It could get pretty rough and sometimes we would try to prevent the other from jumping and grabbing the trapeze and down he'd go into the loose hey. The way you'de thump some one off the trapeze is you grasp the guy with yer legs and apply your whole weight to his and he'd either fall off or bring you with'm to. :D One day some one was being a smart elic and thought it was funny to whip the bar up to the top hay mow where I was standing and I got the metal bar between the eyes. That ended the fun, *DanG near broke my nose. >:(
Quote from: Tom on July 02, 2005, 07:30:58 PM
Those days were slim pickin's. I didn't have a pot or a window. :D
This link should go to the story, if you have time (http://www.tomssaw.com/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1069461039,10366,) :)
Guardian angel on duty that day, just as well or we never would have got the story. :) :)
Looked out the window to survey the situation, and not 1/2 second later a nice one hit the phone pole I was looking at. Bright flash of light, immediate "POW", and some of that "just had a flash picture taken of me" thing with the eyes. But I could still see the smoldering wood schrapnel falling to the ground.
It was kind of cool, although mine appeared to me much smaller than yours. It was a "waker upper".