Penzance Ball Lightning?

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Graham Easterling
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Penzance Ball Lightning?

Post by Graham Easterling » Thu Jan 14, 2016 4:31 pm

With the higher than normal SSTs, and unstable air, hail has fallen every day in Penzance since 8th. The 9th & 10th also saw thunder.

There was a lightning strike at 04:30 on 10th that was rather unusual. It struck a pole a few hundred yards from me and did a fair bit of damage locally. Routers exploded, sockets were charred, most of Penzance lost landline connections, the small pool at the nearby leisure centre drained itself, the list goes on. A bit here http://www.cornishman.co.uk/Weird-explo ... story.html . There was also large hail. The whole event set off burglar & car alarms across Penzance.

What is unusual is that it sounded like a big explosion rather than normal thunder. OK, I was very close so you might expect that, but several people at St Ives, 5 miles away, reported an explosion when you would certainly expect it to be a rumble at that distance.

It has been suggested it was 'ball' lightning, something I know little about. However, accounts of ball lightning do appear to suggest a sound more typical of an explosion. The Met Office has been asked, but came back with this "There is evidence that there was a lightning strike in the Penzance area in the early hours of Sunday morning" Given that there was an almighty flash at 04:30, and many in Penzance know where it hit, that wasn't a great step forward! They also said "There is no evidence to suggest there was ball lightning"

So any comments from COL members?
Graham Easterling
Penzance

Website http://penzanceweather.atspace.com/weather.html

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Altitude: 19 metres
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Martin Rowley
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Re: Penzance Ball Lightning?

Post by Martin Rowley » Thu Jan 14, 2016 9:43 pm

... can't add anything on the subject, but I would report this to TORRO as I'm sure they would be interested in the event
http://www.torro.org.uk/ball_info.php

Martin.
Martin Rowley
West Moors, East Dorset
Lat: 50deg 49.25'N, Long: 01deg 53.05'W
Height (amsl): 17 m (56 feet)
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Graham Easterling
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Re: Penzance Ball Lightning?

Post by Graham Easterling » Fri Jan 15, 2016 9:08 am

Thanks Martin.

Unfortunately, due to the time (04:30), virtually no-one was up an about to describe what preceded the bang. It was the only flash of lightning during the event. Apart the damage done it was the unusual nature of the sound, typical of an explosion rather than thunder, that was notable. The flash was certainly very bright (the preceding hail had woken me up) but then that was not surprising.

I'll see if more comes to light.
Graham Easterling
Penzance

Website http://penzanceweather.atspace.com/weather.html

Site Details
Grid Reference: SW464231
Altitude: 19 metres
Aspect: South-East

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Edward Graham
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Re: Penzance Ball Lightning?

Post by Edward Graham » Sun Jan 17, 2016 12:02 am

Graham,
Your Penzance lightning strike post got me thinking of "cold weather" thunderstorms - here I shall mention but two events that I have witnessed over the years:
(i) Jan 1995 when I stayed in Reading: There was a powerful hail and thunderstorm during the night (it is mentioned in Roger's and Stephen's book '100 years of Reading weather'), with lightning striking Christchurch near the University, and there was also supposed incidence of ball lightning some distance outside Reading. But what was remarkable was the fact that all my colleagues and friends reported the "loud explosion" of thunder either immediately after the flash, or within a few seconds, despite us living many miles away from one another. How could this be?
(ii) Similarly, in Stornoway where I now live, we get frequent maritime polar airmass thunderstorms during winter - usually there are only one or two flashes per storm (with a few notable exceptions). On one occasion, a single-flash storm went through Stornoway with loud thunder following lightning by a few seconds. Yet, on the other side of the island 20 miles away, people also reported the same time interval between flash and crack for that particular storm - again, how could this be?
The answer must be of course - they were HUGE lightning flashes, through the whole cloud from side-to-side and from top-to-base, with multiple forks, branches, etc.. Hence, in that way we could have all heard the thunder at approximately the same time.
Now of course we know very, very little about ball lightning (though again, some was reported here in the Hebrides in Dec 2013). However, winter lightning does have much higher voltage, different charge, and their clouds have much lower freezing levels, when compared to 'continental summer' or 'Spanish plume' storms.
E.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/eddy_weather Blog Aimsir Innse Gall | Hebridean Weather Blog: http://bit.ly/1aVMqGx

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Graham Easterling
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Re: Penzance Ball Lightning?

Post by Graham Easterling » Mon Jan 18, 2016 4:47 pm

i) Jan 1995 when I stayed in Reading: There was a powerful hail and thunderstorm during the night (it is mentioned in Roger's and Stephen's book '100 years of Reading weather'), with lightning striking Christchurch near the University, and there was also supposed incidence of ball lightning some distance outside Reading. But what was remarkable was the fact that all my colleagues and friends reported the "loud explosion" of thunder either immediately after the flash, or within a few seconds, despite us living many miles away from one another. How could this be?
(ii) Similarly, in Stornoway where I now live, we get frequent maritime polar airmass thunderstorms during winter - usually there are only one or two flashes per storm (with a few notable exceptions). On one occasion, a single-flash storm went through Stornoway with loud thunder following lightning by a few seconds. Yet, on the other side of the island 20 miles away, people also reported the same time interval between flash and crack for that particular storm - again, how could this be?.
It was just this feature that caught my attention. I have relations in Carbis Bay, 5 miles away, yet they thought they had been awoken by an explosion. In fact when I spoke to them they didn't even realise it was lightning, there was no rain or hail over at Carbis Bay.

As you say, it' seems it's these 1 or 2 flash winter storms which do most damage. There was a spectacular thunderstorm over west Cornwall in July 2014, with some of the best lightning I've ever seen (See http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/ima ... -large.jpg for Penzance and http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/ima ... 394293.jpg for St Ives) yet there was little rain, and minimal if any damage.
Graham Easterling
Penzance

Website http://penzanceweather.atspace.com/weather.html

Site Details
Grid Reference: SW464231
Altitude: 19 metres
Aspect: South-East

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