...
Having said that I have witnessed electric storms on clear cloudless nights start spot fires in really remote areas, people associate lightning with thunder and dark clouds and find it hard to accept that there is lightning with clear skies.
Years ago I was about to go out and split some firewood. The splitter was under a big old oak tree to provide shade. There was a front due that afternoon and I checked radar which showed that the rain was at least 30ish miles away. There was not a cloud in the sky over the house though. Figured I would NOT split wood since the rain would be here just as I got going so I called my parents instead.
During the phone call, I went and looked out of the west side of the house to see if I could see the front. I could not and the sky was still cloudless...
At that moment, there was a bright, blinding white flash. EVERYTHING went white/bright. Then there was a BOOM!. Loudest boom I have ever heard. :shocked:
Lightning had hit that oak tree shading the wood splitter.
The power went out, the cell phone call ended, Internet went down, etc. Believe it or not everything came back up just fine. The tree, not so much. Bark was blown off a good 100 feet. Funny thing is that the leaves stayed green for another month or two, and then one day, ALL of the leaves died. FREAKY!
Not sure I would be here if I had gone out to split wood under that tree...
That front went on and spun up a bunch of tornadoes that killed people south and east of us. :thumbdown:
We live on a slight hill that is taller than the land around us. I noticed when we bought the place, that the trees on the hill where not as tall or as big as the trees on lower elevation. My theory was that lightning was getting the trees and they only get saw old before they are kill off. My theory is correct.
Off of the top of my head I can think off at least six trees that have been hit by lightning and died. They just get to a certain size and BOOM!.
We had a nasty thunderstorm blow through last night with lots of close lightning/thunder but they most have been cloud to cloud since we did not have any power glitches. If the lightning hits the ground the power will blip a bit or worse.
Later,
Dan
