Crazy Storm Weather and Lightning - Global

[mabar]

Since lighting events are increasing, I made this new topic, to pour down here this events, as in sinkholes, earthquakes ...

I read about the lighting that hurt people in Germany this weekend in The Watchers, it has the detail of the "positive gigant" or "bolt from the blue", to which I think is important to know ... one, is expected to see lighting in/from/with clouds, not in a clear sky ...

In a second freak incident - occurring at around the same time - 35 people were injured by a lightning bolt during a football match in Germany. The lightning struck at the end of a children's match in the town of Hoppstaedten.

Deadly thunderstorms hit Europe, "positive giant" hits a referee in Germany

A low pressure center is covering a large swathe of Europe producing heavy rain and severe electrical storms since Saturday, May 28, 2016. At least 2 people were killed and more than 35 injured on Saturday alone. The severe weather is expected to move over to the UK on Monday, May 30, and last at least until May 31.

A bolt of lightning that, according to witnesses, appeared from a cloudless sky hit the pitch at the end of a children's football match in Hoppstaedten, western Germany. Police said 35 people were taken to a hospital. Of them, 30 were children, ages 9 to 11, who suffered minor injuries and three adults with serious injuries. A referee was directly hit by the lightning and suffered cardiac arrest. He was revived by witnesses and a doctor before being rushed to the hospital by helicopter. Two more adults suffered minor injuries.

Lightning bolts that appear from cloudless skies are formed atop of a thunderhead and carry a positive charge, as opposed to the 'regular' lightning that carries a negative electrical charge and is released from the base of a thunderstorm cloud. Such lightning is called a "positive giant" and a “bolt from the blue.” This is an extremely dangerous type of lightning as it can carry more than 10 times the electrical current of a regular bolt, last more than 10 times longer and move horizontally, often up to 40 km (25 miles) away from the source. There are reports of such bolts traveling as far as 80 km (50 miles) from the cloud that produced it.

 

[Mikey]

Re: Lighting around the world

http://en.blitzortung.org is a community-driven global lightning detector network. They offer realtime visualization maps on their websites.

http://www.lightningmaps.org/ is based upon the same realtime data, but is using the more flexible Google Maps as a base.

Interesting to note (from my own observation of these maps) is that lightning storms seem to start and end over entire continents at the same time (within a few hours) -- see attached image of thunderstorms happening over Europe right now, as well as this YouTube video of a time lapse 2015 (go to time index 7:00 for more activity). This doesn't really confirm the "friction" explanation of lightning. Whatever causes lightning, it seems to be global -- the sun is the most obvious electical driver.

 

[Joe]

Re: Lighting around the world

Indeed. There were serious storms over a large swathe of Western Europe 2 days ago. Here's a graphic.


By 10.15 in the evening on the 28th. 83,000 strikes had been detected during the day in France alone!

 

[Joe]

Re: Lighting around the world

Here's another image of most of Europe right now. Strikes lighting the place up like caesarmas! Mid northern France is under a flood warning because it's raining non-stop. S. Eastern Germany just got flooded and stormed out too.

 

[Chad]

Re: Lighting around the world

Of interest were the sheer number and scale of the storms, as well as how they took many by surprise. There was a fatality in Poland:

A man was killed in southern Poland as he was hit by lightning while descending a mountain.

Following the link you can see a video of the sky in Paris - you hear the thunder but don't see lightning, and for what occurred, the sky doesn't look particularly foreboding, which i think relates to Data's comments about the theory currently put forward doesn't explain everything...

https://twitter.com/AurelieRP/status/736607993287069700

TV reporting of the event: the strike at the match in Germany was strange because "it wasn't particularly cloudy at the time", which seems to kinda correlate with the sudden occurrence in Paris.

http://<iframe width="560" height="...lQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

On the day of the incidents, the KP index was quiet but the the geomagnetic situation wasn't according to other monitors and also reports from Spaceweather

According to Spaceweather yesterday:

[...]This may have something to do with the coronal hole stream which should be arriving

CHANCE OF MINOR STORMS: NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of minor G1-class geomagnetic storms on May 27th when Earth enters a high-speed stream of solar wind. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras, especially in the southern hemisphere where darkening autumn skies favor visibility of faint lights. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

And now updated for further disruption:

MEMORIAL DAY STORM? NOAA forecasters estimate a 55% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms on May 30th when Earth enters a stream of high-speed solar wind. Magnetic fields in the stream are thought to have a negative polarity ("negative Bz"). Such fields can open a crack in Earth's magnetosphere, allowing solar wind to pour in and fuel auroras.

And some articles from Sott from just the week before:

3 family members killed by lightning bolt in Uttar Pradesh, India; Lightning strikes increase tenfold over Azerbaijan; Lightning bolt kills 21 cattle in McCook County, South Dakota ; Lightning bolt kills a dozen cattle in Phelps County, Missouri

 

[Chad]

Re: Lighting around the world

Here's another image of most of Europe right now. Strikes lighting the place up like caesarmas! Mid northorn France is under a flood warning because it's raining non-stop. S. Eastern Germany just got flooded and stormed out too.

For the record, the geomagnetic monitor graph-thingy below is still showing as quite unsettled/active so if there is anything to: the solar wind and or cosmic rays, the weakened geomagnetic shield, and the increase in extreme weather, it does appear to be showing itself as such.

Since lighting events are increasing, I made this new topic, to pour down here this events, as in sinkholes, earthquakes ...

[...]

I think it's good to have a separate thread too. But to note: of the most recent 11 earthquakes today four were above M5, five above M4.5 and only two lower than that, which, i think, shows there's some correlation going on...

 

[Palinurus]

Re: Lighting around the world

The following two sites give an animated overview of Europe --weather-wise and lightning-wise respectively-- for the latest few hours:

http://europa.buienradar.nl/

http://europa.buienradar.nl/onweer

It really looks quite hefty in the affected areas.

 

[Ca.]

Re: Lighting around the world

http://en.blitzortung.org is a community-driven global lightning detector network. They offer realtime visualization maps on their websites.

http://www.lightningmaps.org/ is based upon the same realtime data, but is using the more flexible Google Maps as a base.

Gads it's so active like the whole planet is shorting out

Lightning Time Lapse | Cleburne, TX | 05/29/2016
Published on May 30, 2016

http://<iframe width="560" height="...l8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

There was a lightning storm off in the distance so for the next hour and a half I shot 957 photos of the storm and pooled them together to create this time lapse.

 

[Gawan]

Re: Lighting around the world

Since lighting events are increasing, I made this new topic, to pour down here this events, as in sinkholes, earthquakes ...

I read about the lighting that hurt people in Germany this weekend in The Watchers, it has the detail of the "positive gigant" or "bolt from the blue", to which I think is important to know ... one, is expected to see lighting in/from/with clouds, not in a clear sky ...

In a second freak incident - occurring at around the same time - 35 people were injured by a lightning bolt during a football match in Germany. The lightning struck at the end of a children's match in the town of Hoppstaedten.

Deadly thunderstorms hit Europe, "positive giant" hits a referee in Germany

A low pressure center is covering a large swathe of Europe producing heavy rain and severe electrical storms since Saturday, May 28, 2016. At least 2 people were killed and more than 35 injured on Saturday alone. The severe weather is expected to move over to the UK on Monday, May 30, and last at least until May 31.

A bolt of lightning that, according to witnesses, appeared from a cloudless sky hit the pitch at the end of a children's football match in Hoppstaedten, western Germany. Police said 35 people were taken to a hospital. Of them, 30 were children, ages 9 to 11, who suffered minor injuries and three adults with serious injuries. A referee was directly hit by the lightning and suffered cardiac arrest. He was revived by witnesses and a doctor before being rushed to the hospital by helicopter. Two more adults suffered minor injuries.

Lightning bolts that appear from cloudless skies are formed atop of a thunderhead and carry a positive charge, as opposed to the 'regular' lightning that carries a negative electrical charge and is released from the base of a thunderstorm cloud. Such lightning is called a "positive giant" and a “bolt from the blue.” This is an extremely dangerous type of lightning as it can carry more than 10 times the electrical current of a regular bolt, last more than 10 times longer and move horizontally, often up to 40 km (25 miles) away from the source. There are reports of such bolts traveling as far as 80 km (50 miles) from the cloud that produced it.

So far to the lightning incident in Germany there are different information released. But more sources confirm that indeed something hit out of the blue the soccer game. Some say though, there where some clouds present and two storm cells not that far away from the place of the incident.

 

[Windmill knight]

Re: Lighting around the world

Speaking of, published 30th of May:

An airliner at the Jieyang Chaoshan International Airport was hit by lightning amid heavy downpours on Monday. Southern Airlines authorities told CCTVNEWS that the flight was hit as it was preparing for an overhaul at the airport. No casualties were reported since no passengers or crew members were onboard when the incident occurred, and the plane suffered no losses. Click the video to see the frightening moment.

http://<iframe width="560" height="...vY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Laura]

Re: Lighting around the world

http://en.blitzortung.org is a community-driven global lightning detector network. They offer realtime visualization maps on their websites.

http://www.lightningmaps.org/ is based upon the same realtime data, but is using the more flexible Google Maps as a base.

Gads it's so active like the whole planet is shorting out

Lightning Time Lapse | Cleburne, TX | 05/29/2016
Published on May 30, 2016

http://<iframe width="560" height="...l8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

There was a lightning storm off in the distance so for the next hour and a half I shot 957 photos of the storm and pooled them together to create this time lapse.

Did you notice that right about 5 seconds it looks like a meteor plunging into the top of that cloud?

 

[Joe]

Re: Lighting around the world

Did you notice that right about 5 seconds it looks like a meteor plunging into the top of that cloud?

There are a bunch of what must be planes flying towards it. Maybe one of those?

 

[Ca.]

Re: Lighting around the world

Did you notice that right about 5 seconds it looks like a meteor plunging into the top of that cloud?

There are a bunch of what must be planes flying towards it. Maybe one of those?

I though it might be Bail Lightning. But i have seen UFO's in the vivacity of lighting and thunder storm's activity. Here in France about 3 years ago. It looked like an upside down carousel, less the horses. And was seen very, very, far away at ground level.
High the sky, and moving into thunderstorm complex. As best as i can describe it.

 

[mabar]

Re: Lighting around the world

Did you notice that right about 5 seconds it looks like a meteor plunging into the top of that cloud?

There are a bunch of what must be planes flying towards it. Maybe one of those?

In that angle? ... I saw it too, incoming from the right side, then again is a time lapse ... "the meteor sighting" would be slower ...

So far to the lightning incident in Germany there are different information released. But more sources confirm that indeed something hit out of the blue the soccer game. Some say though, there where some clouds present and two storm cells not that far away from the place of the incident.

Thanks Gawan, considering the graphics, I do not doubt it... and info can come ...hectic

 

[stellar]

Re: Lighting around the world

Did you notice that right about 5 seconds it looks like a meteor plunging into the top of that cloud?

There are a bunch of what must be planes flying towards it. Maybe one of those?

In that angle? ... I saw it too, incoming from the right side, then again is a time lapse ... "the meteor sighting" would be slower ...

So far to the lightning incident in Germany there are different information released. But more sources confirm that indeed something hit out of the blue the soccer game. Some say though, there where some clouds present and two storm cells not that far away from the place of the incident.

Thanks Gawan, considering the graphics, I do not doubt it... and info can come ...hectic

I saw six objects. Five headed for the middle of the storm and the sixth went beyond. Hard to say what they were.