Mother of all lightning strikes...or at least for me!

[Paschale]

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)

[Tom]

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

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Ed said while I was away, there were 1700 lightning strikes in Sebastian immediate area, in 3 hours. 

[Paschale]

Lose my appetite?  That's just crazy talk!   :D

[UNCLEBUCK]

Crazy things happen to people after eating duck eggs !  . 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 !

[Furby]

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!  :-\

[etat]

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. 

[Teri]

I hate storms. I sometimes want to go hide when it gets bad.

[Ron Wenrich]

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.

[sawguy21]

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.

[Don P]

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.

[D._Frederick]

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.

[ohsoloco]

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  :

[SwampDonkey]

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.  :-\

[mike_van]

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!

[sawguy21]

You got that right ;D

[Corley5]

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    

[jtmccallum]

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.  

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.

[Faron]

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!)

[florida]

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."

[Percy]

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

[Don_Papenburg]

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.

[Paschale]

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.   ;)

[OneWithWood]

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.

[Don P]

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.

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 

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?