Lightning!

[gtblum]

The screen capture thread made me start looking for something I could use to extract pictures from video. Found one.

These are some of the stills from the storm over the lake in May.

I know Kurt saw the video. Wait til you see these. This is a frame by frame from starting at the bluff I was standing on, to to finishing in the same place.

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[kurt]

In the video, you can see the little tendrils in pic #2 wrapping around the legs of the videographer.

That's the danger of thinking lightning is far away; if one can see it, it's actually all around us.

[John Kogel]

I wonder if that is all lightning or if some of those tendrils are reflected light off the lake hitting the camera lens?

The actual strike seems to be over the horizon in the last pic.

Anyway, it is all pretty neat to catch that action. Digital video makes it possible.

[gtblum]

O

riginally posted by John Kogel

I wonder if that is all lightning or if some of those tendrils are reflected light off the lake hitting the camera lens?

The actual strike seems to be over the horizon in the last pic.

Anyway, it is all pretty neat to catch that action. Digital video makes it possible.

Let's see what you think about this one. I think this is the one Kurt's thinking of.

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Or, the one that drove me back to the house.

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Reflection?

[John Kogel]

No that was as close as you ever hope to get.

[kurt]

In the video, it appears very clearly that the tendrils are actually extending around the videographer. Of course, maybe I got it wrong, but it sure looks like it.

The NYT had an article in the science section about this phenomenon. Only a slight fraction of lightning strikes are visible to the human eye; what appears to be far away is only the main strike; there are thousands of tendrils running all over the place. Many folks that have been hit by lightning describe the lightning being "very far away"; it's a mistake to think that; it's all around us when we're watching it.