Question About Lightning

[riverratmike]

Ok, the last couple of nights here in Lake Havasu City, AZ where I live have been off the hook. We have had two severe thunderstorms in two days already and 1.24 inches of rain. Along with these storms are these incredible flashes and flashes of non stop lightning. 1000's and 1000's of flashes in a very short time. Lightning in the clouds but no visible bolts. Last night I could easily witness 80 or more flashes of light in less than a minute, but no bolts to be seen. It was amazing how charged the air was. Is this called Sheet Lightning? Why is it that I only am seeing a flash, not the bolt of lightning. I thought maybe cause the storm is so highly elevated and the clouds are charged instead of the ground. Anyway, just curious about this type of lightning.

[Aslkahuna]

It's in cloud and possibly intrercloud lightning which comprises the majority of lightning strikes within the thunderstorm-also heavy rain will obscured CG lightning to the point where the actual bolt can't be seen. I have video showing what you speak of.

Steve

[Hurricaneman]

cloud to ground lightning is usually associated with more intense thunderstorms

[Aslkahuna]

Well, you can get CG from weak storms just not frequent. What he's talking about is basically strobe light lightning where the storm is constantly flashing. The CG strikes will still be much rarer than the inter and intracloud lightning. When there's heavy rain of the type we see here in AZ, you won't even be able to see the CG strikes just a bright light. I had an experience with a Rim storm east of Tucson where the rain was so heavy that even though we had intense CG striking within 1000 feet of my vehicle at times I was never able to see the actual strike just a bright flash and loud Kerblam. The onset of the heavy rain and high wind was so sudden that there were 13 accidents on I-10 in 30 seconds (I knew what was coming so had pulled off the Interstate along with some truckers.

Steve

[riverratmike]

CG? what does that stand for. strobe light lightning would explain it.

[vbhoutex]

CG? what does that stand for. strobe light lightning would explain it.

CG stand for cloud to ground

[riverratmike]

It's in cloud and possibly intrercloud lightning which comprises the majority of lightning strikes within the thunderstorm-also heavy rain will obscured CG lightning to the point where the actual bolt can't be seen. I have video showing what you speak of.

Steve

I actaully took a video of that storm on Monday night with the 1000's and 1000's of lightning flashes in the clouds. It's a 5 MB file, would love to share it with all of you but don't know where I could host it.

[weatherlover427]

It's in cloud and possibly intrercloud lightning which comprises the majority of lightning strikes within the thunderstorm-also heavy rain will obscured CG lightning to the point where the actual bolt can't be seen. I have video showing what you speak of.

Steve

I actaully took a video of that storm on Monday night with the 1000's and 1000's of lightning flashes in the clouds. It's a 5 MB file, would love to share it with all of you but don't know where I could host it.

As I have friends in Lake Havasu I'd like to see the film that you took. I can also host the file if you'd like.

[riverratmike]

It's in cloud and possibly intrercloud lightning which comprises the majority of lightning strikes within the thunderstorm-also heavy rain will obscured CG lightning to the point where the actual bolt can't be seen. I have video showing what you speak of.

Steve

I actaully took a video of that storm on Monday night with the 1000's and 1000's of lightning flashes in the clouds. It's a 5 MB file, would love to share it with all of you but don't know where I could host it.

As I have friends in Lake Havasu I'd like to see the film that you took. I can also host the file if you'd like.

if you want PM me your e-mail address and I'll send it to ya.

[Jim Cantore]

The storms arent strong enough to produce cloud to ground

I had alot of that today

[Astro_man92]

Can lighting create Wind????? I was thinking that because since the lighting super heats the air it would have to expand incredibly fast resulting in the boom tha toyu hear. can that super heated air rush out and creat a breaf strong gust???

[Aslkahuna]

I don't know about his storms in Lake Havasu, but the ones I videotaped certainly were strong enough to produce CG and in fact they were severe storms but there were just spitting out a lot of IC/CC lightning as well. Have to remember that only about 30% of all of the lightning produced by a thunderstorm is CG lightning. Look at a big Plains boomer from a distance sometime and see how much of the lightning occurs inside or between clouds compared to what's hammering the ground.

Steve