#lightning #slowed #slowmotion #weather
Waves of thunderstorms moved over the central and eastern US in a particularly stormy pattern that brought tornadoes, flooding, and wind damage to many. As the heaviest storms moved south of Nashville late Sunday night, several highly photogenic lightning-triggered upward lightning occurred from the tall television towers around. I've been hoping to capture upward lightning from the candelabras NW of Nashville for a long time.
National Lightning Detection Network flash data for observed CG (downward) and GC (upward) flashes:
Flash 2 (6:33:09): -8 kA IC (north tower; detected several hundred meters from site). The bolt visible in between the towers is possibly a +175 kA CG 6.4 mi away from the camera.
Flash 3 (8:00:48): -17, -14, -10, -8(?) kA IC (west tower), -18, -12 kA CG, -20, -16, -13, -10 kA IC (north tower)
Flash 4 (8:04:28): -18, -12 kA CG, -19, -11, -11, -10, -9, -8 kA IC (north tower), +136 kA CG 3.4 mi behind camera
All times UTC on 27 May 2024. Camera is facing east; north tower is on the left, west tower is the closer candelabra and east tower is the more distant candelabra. Note that the listed NLDN detections are NOT IN ORDER! This is because data available on weather.us only has seconds-scale temporal resolution.
EQUIPMENT I USE:
Nikon D5300 DSLR
Sony CyberShot RX100V
www.sony.com/electronics/cameras
YI 4K Action Camera
Model YAS. 1616.INT
www.yitechnology.com/
Samsung Galaxy S9 Smartphone
Sony Stereo Digital Voice Recorder
Model ICD-UX570
Video editing done using Shotcut
Lightning information provided by Vaisala's National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) through weather.us/lightning. Note that I only use this information to roughly estimate stroke intensity and distance, the data may be prone to error on my end and my work is not, and should not be considered to be, a formal evaluation of the NLDN's performance.
Thanks to Tom A. Warner and other lightning physicists and researchers who have helped me understand lightning processes explained in my videos. Tom has created a great resource for individuals interested in learning how lightning works.
ztresearch.blog/education/