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Blue Lightning?
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Bob DeWoody Send message Joined: 9 May 10 Posts: 3387 Credit: 4,182,900 RAC: 10 |
On Friday evening as Matthew was moving out of central Florida and while I was driving home I saw what appeared to be blue lightning. The bolts themselves were a bluish white but the clouds they came out of glowed a blue to violet color. The first one I saw, I thought was my mind playing tricks on me but then I saw at least two more instances. I looked up blue lightning on google but didn't find anything that matched what I saw. This was cloud to cloud lightning and I didn't see a ground strike. Have any of you seen anything similar? Bob DeWoody My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events. |
bluestar Send message Joined: 5 Sep 12 Posts: 6995 Credit: 2,084,789 RAC: 3 |
Good point, Bob DeWoody. "Itchy pitchy" could almost be said when it comes to this phenomenon. But I think I might have seen it myself. In my opinion, I could be viewing such a thing as "Indirect lightning", meaning that the lightning itself by means of the flash or bolt could be either obscured by clouds and therefore not directly seen or visible. Possibly it could be below or beyond the horizon, meaning out at sea, but this could next be happening in the night. Therefore it is the light itself which is propagating and whether or not this is because of the atmosphere, I really do not know. However, I suspect it could be so. Edit: Using the national edition of the Wikipedia, the local word for this suddenly comes up. I do not have the translation, but any thunder being associated with the lightning might not be heard. Therefore it is a thing which is happening at quite a distance. Edit: Found the following information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_lightning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning The second and third link from "Observational variations" some halfway down in the first link. The word being used for this is from the Wikipedia and became something else and it is not "Ball lightning" either, which is something else. The latter has not been personally experienced, but I happen to recall an event from my child years, where something apparently hit the roof of a house, creating a very strange sound. This was not something of the ordinary. |
rob smith Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22160 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 |
Lightening has a very high colour temperature, which will tend to look blue. Also the human eye tends to shift colours so that the predominant colour of light appears white. Thus, as you were driving at night I assume you had your car headlights on, these typically have a very warm (orange/red) colour, and your eyes will gradually drift this to look white, so the very "hot" lightening flash will appear even more blue than one would expect. Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
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