What's the Weirdest Thing You Have Ever Seen?

[T Bolt]

Back when I was 13 or 14 years old there was a thunderstorm coming in from the west and being a dumb teenager I stayed out in the back yard and watched it come in. You could feel the electricity in the air and the hair on my arms was standing up. Lightning was striking and although there was a second or two delay to hear the thunder I could here a sizzle at the same instant I saw the lightning. Thats when I got scared and ran for the house. I later saw a PBS show about lightning that showed those streamers talked about above in post 37 and it said they were feelers that are put out to find the easiest path for the lightning bolt. I figured even though I didn't see them, that was what was making the sizzling noise around me.
I don't mess with lightning anymore.

 

[manta22]

A couple of friends and I went mountain climbing in the Wind River Range in Wyoming in 1969. We attempted the summit of Mt Woodrow Wilson by the West Col route, a steep, ice-floored gully running up the peak. Halfway up the Col, a blizzard struck, with thunder and lightning. The lightning was striking the peaks only about fifty feet over our hears but we were shielded in a sort of "Faraday cage" by the shape of the Col. At that distance, we could hear the "snap" of the leader discharge immediately before the main strike. Scary, though!
I'm wearing the red backpack, Mike Byorick is in the red jacket, Jim Hunter took the photo.

 

[manta22]

When I was a kid living in Myrtle Beach, SC we rented a house right on the beach. It was built up on pilings so that, at high tide, the water actually went up under the house. I remember sitting on the front deck in summer when a thunderstorm rolled in with lightning repeatedly striking the sea surface a few hundred yards away. There was a tremendous "bang" and a cloud of steam rose from the sea.

 

[denoferth]

At Cape Canaveral we have Field Mill measurement devices that detect such conditions to determine if conditions are suitable to launch. These were added as a constraint as a result of an Atlas shot down by lighting back in 1987. In that case they were unable to determine if there was lightning because the surveillance helicopters had been forced off station by lightning, so they decided it must be Okay.

Several years back I was driving home from work and I could see T-storm clouds to the West. I wanted to go for a run and thought I might still be able to. Then I saw lightning striking a few miles away. Okay, I figured, that was not too close. Then, as I approached my house a bolt of lightning came out of a cloud a mile or two to the West, arced OVER my house and struck the water perhaps a half mile to the East. Never mind going for a run; I was scared to even get out of my car and go in the house, but made it.

One day a few years before that I was driving home from work and stopped at a traffic light in Cocoa Beach. Lightning apparently struck the telephone pole next to where I was sitting. I felt the HEAT from that strike.

Small world. While assigned to the Cumulus Cloud Physics Branch of Cambridge Research Labratory I was tasked to develop the prototype lightning detector.

 

[MIflyer]

Small world. While assigned to the Cumulus Cloud Physics Branch of Cambridge Research Labratory I was tasked to develop the prototype lightning detector.

The Automated Weather Observation Stations at airports gives lightning direction and distance information with its reports. I have wondered how they collect that data.

Following the loss of an Atlas Centaur launched from Cape Canaveral in March 1987 a large "science project" was initiated to review lightning standards for launches. Of course as in many such things, it was designed to obscure the fact that their launch management structure was totally 'effed up, with at least three people who thought they were in charge and no central decision making. At Vandenberg we were appalled that the same kind of mistake was made that led to the loss of the Challenger Space Shuttle. But as a result of the studies the standards were toughened, which enabled them to avoid admitting that they had violated the earlier standards.

 

[ARTESH]

Living in Iran!

That's the wierdest thing I ever experienced!