Is there one word that that means a lot of lightning? For instance, one word that describes a night sky that is constantly full of lightning flashes.

Example " A very lightning-ous evening"

That would be a scientific term which refers to a certain type of lightning like blanket lightning. I don't know the actual name of that type of lightning.

"Electrical storm"? I've heard meterologists use the term before.

Here's a URL to a glossary of Lighning terms:http://wvlightning.com/glossary.html

I still remember seeing lightning light up interior of cumulous clouds at night in the
Philippines, every few seconds, without a sound. It made it possible to walk at night
without any other source of illumination. Never have seen it in US.

a lot of lightning
"Corruscations"? As in: "May the scintillations of your mind, be like the corruscations of summer lightning. Lambent but innocuous."

"A very lightning-ous evening" sounds like time to get out of the water

Yep, we call that sort of lightning sheet lightning, and it's all we ever see here, normally. We've only had three of four storms with cloud-to-ground lightning in the last twenty-one years, all of them in the space of a fortnight in late 2001.

I propose "fulminous" (from latin fulmen, lightning); this word does not exist yet. fulminant is something different.

fulminous - Of or pertaining to thunder and lightning; fulminating.

1635 HEYWOOD Hierarch. II. 63 In his hand a Trisulc thunderbolt or Fulminous brand. 1665 SIR T. BROWNE Wks. (1835) IV. 354 The like fulminous fire killed a man in Erpingham church. 1876 F. HARRISON Choice Bks. (1886) 122 Sad as those fulminous imprecations on mankind, when Lear bows his head to the storm.

Hi tsuwm,
I was expecting your thunderbolt - having looked it up in the OED after posting. But there I also found fulgurous, which fits the bill even better..

illuminated white sheet across the sky--and that's sheet lightning

Ha, ha. And I used the malaprop blanket lightning!

Isn't there supposed to be some kind of phenomenum that occurs during particularly intense lightning storms called ball lightning? I just wondered because when I was growing up in China we were told stories about these things that were supposed to follow people around (which no doubt scarred me for life ). For a long time I thought this was just some made up story until I recently read a newspaper article describing a similar ocurrance - is it real, does anyone know how it happens?

(Yeay! It snowed in London today and set!! )

My father told me about seeing ball lightning. A orangish sphere the size of a grapefruit came
through a stove pipe where it went into chimney, landed on sink ledge, then went down the
sink drain.if I remember correctly, this is an ionized gas plasma. I'll go search for that.
Here is one of several URLs about ball lightning:http://www.pupman.com/listarchives/1998/April/msg00221.html
A better one:
http://www.tbns.net/mediapoet/tech19b.htm

Thanks for that post, Dr. Bill. I love lightning, and find it fascinating that there are still so many natural phenomena we have yet to perceive, much less decode.

I have never seen ball lightning, or met anyone who has, but I have heard that it may account for a significant portion of UFO sightings. That makes sense to me, especially if we are really talking about a few different phenomena, rather than only one. And it seems to be sensible that there could be some patterning with earth's electro magnetic meridians, though I fear venturing into the new-agers territory here. Our planet is living, dynamic and evolving, is it not?

And my two most impressive lightning encounters were on planes, in the sky. About 20 years ago I was returning from a football game on an alums private jet with a pilot and a few coaches. A huge storm loomed over Texas, but we had to make it back to California from New Orleans quickly, so we had to fly through it. I'm afraid the pilot underestimated the size and power of that storm, and the 7 of us spent a terrified couple of hours weaving through those giant thunderheads with huge boalts of lightning exploding all around us, unveiling(what's the word I want here? startling us with...?) the majestic silhouettes of those huge clouds in some strange strobe-like display, jostling the plane wildly to and fro (yes, to and fro!:) None of us looked at each other or spoke even one word as each silently recounted all of the teams and coaches that had met their demise this way. I know we were all sure we were going to meet our maker that very night! It was terrifying, but also perhaps the most spectacular display I have ever seen! And all of a sudden we emerged into clear, smooth skies and lived to tell the tale.

And the other impressive encounter was just this September, when my daughter, husband and I were off to Austin for a family wedding. We don't travel much as a family, so this was a treat for the three of us. As we took off over the Pacific, in a gentle, rare, end of summer rain, my daughter, nosed pressed to the window, saw lightning off in the distance, over the open ocean, but this view was from above, looking down on it. I had never seen it like that. It was beautiful, and far less frightening, I might add, perhaps because it was silent as we were out of range of the attendant thunder. And curiously, it appeared not to actually reach down and connect with the sea, yet from our angle this could have been just an illusion. We were able to watch in wonder for 6 or 7 minutes, before the plane turned back eastward and the storm was out of sight.

maria

Dear MM: I have never seen them, but have read about them. Here's URL you might enjoy:
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/sprites.html

Thanks ww and Dr. Bill. Wow. That last url on high altitude sprites is something. And now (whilst hoping not to get my dear milum all worked up on this thread) I am wondering if indeed I have seen some of these things from the air? It seems that the lightning was in pale colors on that fateful plane ride long ago, though I just chalked it up to the effects of illumination from within the thick clouds.

And my daughter and I may have seen sprites instead of lightning out the plane window.

These seem to me to be to be possible cases where perception and one's concept of reality may influence one another. I had no idea about these other forms of atmospheric phenomena, and so I didn't have those categories in my mind in which to file my new observations. So it seems I just squeezed my memory of what I saw/experienced into a tired old existing thread, the category of 'regular lightning' in my mind, rather than pursue/create something entirely new. And surely, my mind does this hundreds of times each day as new experiences, which are not life threatening, get filed into the wrong bin in an automatic quest to establish some order. Now I'm wondering what I really saw on those two days. In the future, perhaps I'll be not necessarily more observant, but rather more vigilant in describing exactly what I saw, rather than categorizing it too quickly.

Next time I'm in the library I'll head to the lightning section. (And I am embarrassed to admit that I couldn't even spell lightning correctly before this thread. Uhhgg!)

I am actually quite frightened of lightning when it's close by. I'm rather sure I'm going to get struck by it at some point. My old dog and I were once trapped on the wrong side of one of the Sawtooth's in Idaho when a huge summer storm blew through. We raced it up one side of the mountain and down the other, much of the time above the treeline, so we were basically out in the open, hugging close to the shale, with lightning cracking all around, and no one but mountain sheep (moving away far more agilely than either of us!) anywhere near.

Good old dog. He could have left me and gotten out of danger, but he anxiously stayed by my side as I frantically stumbled along.

I had forgotten all about that one. Luckily, we got safely back to camp before the real deluge began, but I'm not sure I'll forget the sound of the bolts hitting the rocky mountainside....

I am actually quite frightened of lightning when it's close by

That sounds like great good sense to me MM!

Catching up on this thread this morning I was expecting to see some reference to St Elmo’s fire. This phenomenon was observed by sailors as glowing balls of fire attached to the tips of masts and yard arms and it gave rise to superstitions related to St Elmo (aka St Erasmus, patron saint of sailors). Unlike ball lightning it always remains attached to an object.

Here is a URL on St Elmo’s fire:

http://www.mysterylights.com/types/stelmo/

How about this description of lightning in bulk quantity:

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

Guinness Book of World Records 2003

Worst Lightning Strike Death Toll
A total of 81 people aboard a Boeing 707 died when their plane was struck by lightning when flying near Elkton, Maryland, December 8, 1963.

Longest Lightning flash
At any one time, about 100 lightning bolts per second hit the earth. Typically, these bolts are about 5.5 miles long. However, in 1956 meterologist Myron Ligda (USA) used radar to record a lightning flash that covered a horizontal distance of 93 miles inside clouds.

When I was in the Philippines there were frequently great big creampuff clouds that would
light up bright enough and often enough that you didn't need a flashlight when walking in
the dark. There was no noise after the flash. I have never seen that in the US. Has anybody
else seen them here?

And I didn't see anybody mention "heat lightning".

Here's a pretty good article on heat lightning.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/13646/92860

Dr. bill found this new article and I thought a few of you may not have seen it.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030120/sc_nm/space_shuttle_dc

Whoa, I never knew about these things! MM, if you don't mind, I'm going to make the link clickable:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030120/sc_nm/space_shuttle_dc
Here's a quote from the article: "One has to be extremely lucky to catch because it lasts only 0.1 milliseconds -- less than a thousandth of a second,"

Of course I don't mind, Jackie. If I had any sense (or time) I would figure out how to do it myself. But i've learned you all can work these things out, if and when you choose.

I had never heard of elves, and surely will never see one as it occurs. But I constantly feel the pull of things unseen, and it facsinates me...the web of all things seen and unseen....

Why won't people believe it is dangerous to be in the water (pond, lake, ocean) when they hear that first rumble of thunder or flash of lightning?
The thunder is a warning lightning may be on the way.
We have had three deaths from lighning in the last 10 years right here on the NH seacoast. Two surfers and another person ... all of whom ignored the thunder and were struck and killed by lightning.
So, pay attention. Summer will come this year (I promise).

figure out how to do it myself
No problem, Dear! Just put [url] http:// in front of the address, and this, after: [/url]. Same thing for colors, bold, and italics: [what you want]in front, and [/what you want] at the end.
You can see that bracket-url-bracket puts an http:// in. I have discovered that if you put the bracket-url-bracket at the end of a line, so that you have to go to the next line to put in the address, this system will add an extra http, and your link won't work.
If this wasn't clear enough (to anybody), feel free to send me a Private Message. The list of colors and faces can be found when you click on "markup in your posts" at the top of your screen when you reply to a message. Note that you don't have to "end" smileys by putting a second pair of brackets and a slash. Just [whatever face you want] will do it.

Dear wow: the problem with lightning is that it is so unpredictable, so hard to know when
precautions are worth the trouble. I am genuinely surprised that surfers should be hit, since
there seems to be so llittle antenna effect to just human standing. And unless thunder is
repeated and getting closer it is not a helpful indicator. A useful bit of trivia, inside an automobile
is the safest place to be. My next choice would be a moderate distance from something tall
that might behave like lightning rod, to attract a stroke, but carry it harmlessly to the ground.
The dumbest thing I can think of would be to carry upright a metal fishing rod.

inside an automobile is the safest place to be

Dear wwh, I have often wondered about aircraft. Logically, or it seems so to me, they should be safe as there is no path to earth, and yet I hear horror stories of aircraft being struck by lightning. Any ideas?

So they've discovered sprites and elves in the ionosphere? Hah, nothing new in that. My mother was always on about the fairies at the bottom of our garden!

- Pfranz

Dear dxb: I was surprised recently by news item of passengers in airplane hit by lightning
being injured. I can't remember how seriously. As with all electical accidents, a circuit has
to be established, with current passing through the human body. The car body and airplane
body form a highly conductive shield, so no current should be able to go through vital
nerves which is capable of causing death. I'll see if I can relocate that news item.

I found it. Apparently ball lightning was involved, and that's so rare it is not all all well understood.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/living/health/3122626.htm

Story on BBC tonight about ball lightning:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1721473.stm