Author Topic: inter-cloud lightning  (Read 8637 times)

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Offline sunshine1921

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inter-cloud lightning
« on: January 21, 2008, 05:22:39 PM »
Hello all, I'm new to this forum.
A while ago during a moderate nighttime storm on the East Coast, I could see what appeared to be long flashes of lightning passing far overhead. The bolts, which had a reddish color, moved in a manner reminiscent of the aurora, and seemed to take in the neighborhood of one second or more to extend across the sky from where they started. Long rolling thunder followed, beginning perhaps about a minute after the lightning. However, from what I've read, lightning bolts take only a small fraction of a second to travel from one point to another. Has anyone here observed anything similar?

Offline ocala

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Re: inter-cloud lightning
« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2008, 06:50:01 PM »
Lightning does take but a fraction of a second when it's cloud to ground. However when it's cloud to cloud it can flash for a few seconds. It can travel for many miles. That's why the thunder last for so long. You initially hear as it's overhead but the fact that it's end point could be 20 miles away means you hear the thunder go on for a long time. I've always called it branch lightning but it's also referred to as spider lightning.
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Offline WeatherBeacon

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Re: inter-cloud lightning
« Reply #2 on: January 21, 2008, 08:02:46 PM »

Lightning does take but a fraction of a second when it's cloud to ground. However when it's cloud to cloud it can flash for a few seconds. It can travel for many miles. That's why the thunder last for so long. You initially hear as it's overhead but the fact that it's end point could be 20 miles away means you hear the thunder go on for a long time. I've always called it branch lightning but it's also referred to as spider lightning.
Check out this photo. http://www.extremeinstability.com/wp/6371wp.jpg

Yeah, when I was younger (teens and early twenties) in SD, a friend and I would drive out of town to watch t-storms. I recall watching many at night, and it was incredible how far cloud to cloud lightning would travel. Sometimes you wouldn't hear the lightning at all due to wind and atmospheric refraction of sound.

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Offline Mark / Ohio

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Re: inter-cloud lightning
« Reply #3 on: January 21, 2008, 11:56:12 PM »
Sometimes at night I wake up and think it's a military jet(s) flying over until a flash comes in the window to wake me the rest of the way up what it really is.  One night time storm was particualy good at producing that last summer.  I could swear the same thunder clap would rumble for the better part of a minute.  Also interesting was that very little rain or cloud to ground came with the storm.
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Offline sunshine1921

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Re: inter-cloud lightning
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2008, 04:43:29 PM »
"the same thunder clap would rumble for the better part of a minute."

Yes! I've heard ones that do that.
Those could be really long lightning then. If the thunder takes 5 seconds to travel one mile, it would take a minute between when you heard the first part of it and when you heard the part that was 12 miles away from that.