When I was a little kid I was completely freaked by lightning. Right before I went off to college I was at the beach and standing about 100 yards away when I saw lightning strike and destroy a tree. Ever since I have been fascinated by it. When a good storm rolls up I love to drive out to a field and watch as the lightning comes in. Who else loves lightning? ]
I'm not in the same boat as you. I don't like it. I've had some close calls. Once a friend was killed on the soccer field after our game. Another time lightening struck near our house and ran out through the wall several times in an hour. We had a two man saw bolted to the wall and the lightening was shooting out of the bolts. One bolt finally melted and the saw fell down. It was freaky. Only thing I could figure was that the lightening was hitting the ground or the roof and somehow travelled through wetness in the wall? To the metal? I don't walk around scared of it, but I don't love it either. I put it in the same category as tornadoes and plane crashes. I don't live in fear of them but I don't miss it if I never see it again.
Don't get me wrong I am not running around in an open field looking to get a close up shot of lightning. I definitely have a healthy respect for it. More so than most of my friends. I am the first to get the heck away from water if there is any storm nearby. Years ago a couple of friends of mine were fishing on the Chesapeake Bay when a storm rolled in quickly. They were high tailing it home and nearing the beach. Lightning struck the bay a good ways away from them. When the lightning hit it knocked the driver out of the boat. He was OK but stunned to find he was all of the sudden in the water. It is definitely not stuff you want to mess around with.
I always thought it some silly sadistic nonsense perpetrated by evil drill sergeants when we had to gather up in a clearing and sit in the pouring rain instead of under some cover when there was active lightning. While I was at Ft Bragg a platoon of guys from another company in the brigade did exactly that and took shelter under some pine trees and one was struck by lightning. If I remember right there were fatalities, there was definitely some injuries and ended careers. That being said, I think lightning is right up there with tornadoes and the Northern Lights as the most amazing thing Mama Nature has to show.
I like to go out into the country, and watch it myself. Always have. When I knew a severe storm was coming in, I would go out and video tape it, hoping to catch something cool. I always wanted to see a tornado. You know, out in the country, and not hurting anyone. I was once sitting on my front porch, years ago, and was watching a storm roll through. There was an unusual looking cloud moving fast, and I called my wife out to see it. About that time, it dropped down into a tornado, two blocks in front of my face. Luckily, it hopped, and didn't do too much damage, but, that was the last time I wanted to see a tornado...
I think there's some kind of recessive gene in people in the Midwest when it comes to tornadoes. About a month ago the sirens went off and like the good Iowegian I am I promptly ran outside to see if I could spot the tornado. I mean, I could've stayed in the basement with the dogs but how would I see the tornado then? The tornado was a baby F2 but I got to watch it touch down about a mile and a half to the east. The funny thing was that all of my neighbors went running out at the same time. Lots of 'Ooh, ahh, look at that" and screaming at their kids to go down to the basement right now.
We got @ 8" of rain last Saturday night. This was accompanied by 5 hours of the most wicked lightning, I had seen in a very long while. I sat on the front porch and watched it for a long while. I am amazed that the temperature of a lightning bolt is nearly 5 times that of the surface of the sun.
I sat out last night amongst the eastern Diamondbacks watching the storm. Lightning will make a mess of you though.
Lost my t.v. and computer modem to a lightning strike two weeks ago, the bolt hit a tree next to my house and traveled through the telephone line into my wall outlet where the modem was plugged into. Years ago I was operating a bulldozer out in the woods when a thunderstorm rolled in, I left the dozer and got down in a low spot as far away from the trees as possible until the storm passed; very stressful to say the least. They are neat to watch but NOT too nice to be stuck outdoors in, especially while fishing in a boat here in Florida.
I've seen it posted a few places before. I believe it was actually the result of underwater blasting. The "strike" on the far side was the detonation.
That would make a lot more sense than lightning striking the water. Seemed extreme even for lightning.
That first one, you could almost feel the charge in the air. On a previous trip there I was sitting out on the verandah as a storm rolled across. I was just glassing the hillside with binos and happened to settle on a great big gum tree, that then promptly exploded...a bolt of lightening came down and seemed to just keep pulsing into this poor old tree, orange flash and tree going everywhere !!