Chris Kridler's Sky Diary: storm chasing, photography and rainy-day tales

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The Storm Seekers Series, novels about storm chasers by Chris Kridler

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a triple lightning flash



After seeing tornadoes west of Medford, OK, on May 24, 1998, we (the Cloud 9 Tours group) headed east, weathered plum-size hail in Medford and then headed east again. That's when lightning hit on both sides of the road in front of us, sending sparks showering from transformers on three telephone poles. Here are shots from the strike, as well as an animated GIF to give you an idea of what it was like. All are taken from my Hi8 video.




The flash was amazingly close. On my video, when the lightning strikes, there is first a frame that is white -- completely filled with light. Two bolts are apparent in the frame shown above, though sparks showered from three telephone poles. It's possible that two poles were hit, one on each side of the road, and the charge on the left side traveled up the power line to cause sparks to shower from two transformers on the left, or north, side of the road. In the frame below, you can see the remnants of the lightning and showers of sparks.








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