Sunday night & early Monday, TWC ran the video of a lightning strike
from an elevated camera position, perhaps from a tv tower. I'm unsure
what city it happened. I counted about 5 strikes at each location the
bolts hit. I am unsure how to make a mpeg of this in slow mode, if
anybody does, e-mail me. These are single frames of each bolt location,
and the transformer explosion (3 o'clock position) on the last frame.
http://pix.onelist.com/attach/215751/196/gs-21=57=215751/10-1-10-17/image=jpeg/snapshot.jpg
the tower gets struck...
http://pix.onelist.com/attach/215751/197/gs-21=57=215751/10-1-10-17/image=jpeg/snapshot.jpg
bolt 3...
http://pix.onelist.com/attach/215751/198/gs-21=57=215751/10-1-10-17/image=jpeg/snapshot.jpg
and then the transformer explodes:
http://pix.onelist.com/attach/215751/199/gs-21=57=215751/10-1-10-17/image=jpeg/snapshot.jpg
Weather in my home town was lacking of excitement. Although we had .41"
rain Sunday to Tue, we had no thunderstorms. The nearest t-storm tracked
from 40 miles west to 60 miles north of us Tue evening. The only
moderate rain came in a squall (w/ 22mph pwg) at 2:30am Tue.
Winds picked up Tue afternoon, and we had a spectacular cloud show
(links). The clouds were accompanying the cold front, & contained no
rain.
looking north
http://pix.onelist.com/attach/429973/220/gs-42=99=429973/10-1-10-19/image=jpeg/snapshot.jpg
looking west
http://pix.onelist.com/attach/429973/221/gs-42=99=429973/10-1-10-19/image=jpeg/snapshot.jpg
looking east
http://pix.onelist.com/attach/429973/222/gs-42=99=429973/10-1-10-19/image=jpeg/snapshot.jpg
Temp early Tue hovered around 65, fell to 55 when the rain began at
2:15am, and rose to 62 at noon Tue. The temp then fell thru the 50s, 40s
& it is 37 at 2am Wed. PWG was 33mph at 5pm Tue, and a 26mph PWG at
1:52am today.
Cool temps for today & Wed night, but seasonable (60s) to briefly warm
(about 70) is in the 5 day forecast, along w/ the next thunderstorm
threat on Sat.
I spent much of Mon cyber chasing for my sister, who lives north of
Atlanta. She called me at 3am[she knows i'm up in the wee hours] and
asked "where is it?!". I asked what she was talking about. She said she
& her family had been in the hall for 15 minutes because the tornado
sirens went off. I told her call back in about 5 minutes, and i looked
up the warning & the radar. The warning was about to expire & the storm
looked more like a bow echo, now 10 miles to here east. The damage shown
Mon am on TWC was about 7 miles from where she lives.
About midday, i called w/ the info on the AL tornado watch & squall line
& SPC's "PDS" [particularly dangerous situation]. That line hit about
6:30pm. The sirens went off, even though it was NOT a tornado warning.
It was a severe t-storm warning. I speculate the EMS people activated
the siren because "widespread wind damage" was used in the STW. She
quickly finished dinner, and waiting the storm out in the hall. I was
relaying what could be a hook, or more likely a rotation, about 5 miles
to her west.The storms passed w/ no damage to her home. She did complain
that it took TWC _15 minutes_ to post the evening warning. I called 5
minutes after i saw it, and 15 minutes before the storm hit.
Steve Minghini, Winchester (nw) VA
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon May 01 2000 - 12:39:01 EDT
