Busted - Almost Struck by Lightning Video

ORIGINAL POST:

A man named Rod Mathes in The Colony [Google Map], north of Dallas, Texas, videotaped what the media says is a lightning strike hitting near some children walking in a storm earlier this week (click here for the story; click here to watch the video). First of all, it pains my heart to say that The Weather Guys scooped me on this Thursday, even though I had the URL to the story Wednesday. I've been so busy this week I've got blog ideas piling up. I hereby resolve to post this stuff earlier in the future!

Now, as you expected, I'm going to bust a "Fact or Fiction" on this video. When I saw this video, I was almost 100% sure that it was not what it had promised -- lightning striking in the foreground of the video.

Why? I've video taped a good bit of lightning and I've been within about 20 feet of lightning three times in my life, once witnessing it hit the ground. The video I saw was not the way it happens.

- For one, the lightning does not even go up to the sky, which is a problem. Whether lightning goes from sky to earth or in the opposite direction is complicated, but it can't stop in-between. The only thing this could be is a "leader," or "streamer" which is a charge coming from the ground attempting to connect with the charge from the sky. These are extremely rare to capture on video or photos. WVLightning.com has an example of a leader caught on video here and a photo here.

- But most importantly, the bolt in this video is much too small, thin and dim (a strike that close actually looks like a ball of fire coming down from the heavens, if you can see anything). Check out how wide the bolt is in this real photo of a close lightning strike I blogged about last year. And that strike was further away than this one claims to be!

- It's also an odd place for lightning to strike -- it normally picks metal or high objects. Here it has struck down to the street between trees.

- And finally, the kids are not very frightened. If lightning hit that close to them they would be scared off their feet if not injured.

So if it wasn't a leader, and it wasn't a real lightning strike, what was it? I was almost positive it was an example of "false lightning" or a "lightning ghost," both names for a lens reflection artifact often seen on video of lightning, where the actual strike, elsewhere in the frame or even off-camera, is reflected into the foreground, making it appear that the strike occurred up close. I have captured these myself before. This is not to say that the strike did not happen, or that it was not way too close for comfort for the photographer or the kids, I am simply saying that the partial bolt we see in the video is not the actual strike itself.

But before I posted, I wanted to consult an expert in lightning photography, Doug Kiesling, a friend of mine who likes to call himself a member of the "Weather Paparazzi," a group of weather enthusiasts known to the media as "storm chasers." Doug, AKA LightningBoy, has photographed and videoed a lot of lightning in his life, and he confirmed that this video shows an example of "false lightning," which by his description, is caused by the lightning strike "overpowering the camera's optics." In fact, he gave me permission to show the following video, which shows an example that Doug videotaped of false lightning, the actual lightning, and overlays the two to prove that it is the same strike.

EXAMPLE OF "FALSE LIGHTNING" BY DOUG KIESLING:

NOTE: THE VIDEO ABOVE MAY BE PRECEDED BY ADVERTISEMENTS ON AD-SUPPORTED SITES

The actual strike that appears in the Texas video is either off-screen or in the sky at the top where everything is overexposed, and that's why we can't see it.

I just finished watching Doug's Hurricane Charley and Hurricane Katrina DVDs from HurricanePhotographer.com, which contain absolutely incredible video from him and other storm chasers in the heart of the storms. The footage is so extreme, I was wiped out after watching them.

The Weather Guys also linked in StruckByLightning.Org which maintains a database of lightning strike events (very interesting -- I was just thinking the other day, "Does anybody do that?" because the NWS doesn't include lightning in their severe weather spotter reports. However, NCDC compiles lightning stats and makes them available on their Storm Events Database.

I knew that data existed because I used to compile lightning injury and death stats in the early 1990's when I had a CO-OP job there (I know, what a macabre job!) . Golf course and other outdoor sports fatalities are huge, of course, but it's amazing how many people are struck by lightning getting in and out of their cars, or in parking lots. There is an interesting paper called "Distributions of Lightning-Caused Casualties" online from UIC.

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