Ball lightning
Ball lightning
too Wtf for the weather thread
Re: Ball lightning
5th level spell.
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ChalkRocker
- Posts: 2356
- Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 1:26 pm
Re: Ball lightning
Yeah prob, but that’s beside the point.
It’s literally a ball of lightning. It might wander down power lines, or come down your chimney like Santa, or just kind of float around erratically.
And it might just quietly dissipate, or violently explode!
And it usually smells like burnt sulphur when it’s gone.
And this is totally a thing you guys, and not some elaborate story to cover for what otherwise smells like I farted
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ChalkRocker
- Posts: 2356
- Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 1:26 pm
Re: Ball lightning
Admit it - if you saw this in real life, the only reasonable explanation you’d have would be that Neil Diamond musta spiked the frozen marg machine at the shack again
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Deleted User 89
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Deleted User 89
Re: Ball lightning
There was a story about this on one of the npr shows over the weekend. I’d say science Friday, but I think it was Sunday...maybe a re-air.
Anywho so it mentioned annoutdoor wedding that got a rain delay. Folks were huddled in a big banquet tent when one of those lightning balls descended into the tent and floated around for a while. Sulphur smell too!
The sulphur smell was eventually determined to be from Aunt Joanie having too many deviled eggs off the app table, but everybody was weirded out by this glowing orb. Turns out it’s a natural occurrence, and not even that uncommon, but judging by the lack of good gifs I kinda don’t believe that.
The show also discussed some concern about putting satellites and shit in orbit, and how it’s prob just some matter of time til they start running into each other and it snowballs to the point we can’t put anything in orbit any more cuz there’s too much orbiting debris that destroys anything in its path, but even that doesn’t seem as wild as ball lightning.
Anywho so it mentioned annoutdoor wedding that got a rain delay. Folks were huddled in a big banquet tent when one of those lightning balls descended into the tent and floated around for a while. Sulphur smell too!
The sulphur smell was eventually determined to be from Aunt Joanie having too many deviled eggs off the app table, but everybody was weirded out by this glowing orb. Turns out it’s a natural occurrence, and not even that uncommon, but judging by the lack of good gifs I kinda don’t believe that.
The show also discussed some concern about putting satellites and shit in orbit, and how it’s prob just some matter of time til they start running into each other and it snowballs to the point we can’t put anything in orbit any more cuz there’s too much orbiting debris that destroys anything in its path, but even that doesn’t seem as wild as ball lightning.
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Deleted User 89
Re: Ball lightning
apparently, in the 1960s the US government researched the possibility of weaponizing ball lightening in the form of a plasma weapon, and in the early 2000s the Missile Defense Agency supposedly funded the development of a ball lightening weapon capable of disabling electronic devices (like missiles). however, no such weapon seems to exist
(this all according to encyclopedia brittanica)
(this all according to encyclopedia brittanica)
Re: Ball lightning
For real!
I think they estimated 5% of folks have seen it but like come on no way. Especially not seen one do something wild lkke descend into a tent, or come down a chimney, or there was this one story about some church in Europe hundreds of years ago in which the faithful were sheltering during a big storm, and a lightning ball busted in and exploded and injured and even killed some folks, and everybody thought it was god’s wrath cuz some of the parishioners were playing cards in the pews.
But if 5% of folks have seen this shit, then even somebody on these boreds by now likely shoulda been like “yeah I’ve seen this shit.” So I think the estimations are off.
I think they estimated 5% of folks have seen it but like come on no way. Especially not seen one do something wild lkke descend into a tent, or come down a chimney, or there was this one story about some church in Europe hundreds of years ago in which the faithful were sheltering during a big storm, and a lightning ball busted in and exploded and injured and even killed some folks, and everybody thought it was god’s wrath cuz some of the parishioners were playing cards in the pews.
But if 5% of folks have seen this shit, then even somebody on these boreds by now likely shoulda been like “yeah I’ve seen this shit.” So I think the estimations are off.
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Deleted User 89
Re: Ball lightning
what’s crazy is that apparently nobody knows how or why it forms
Re: Ball lightning
I was gonna try to come up with some comments to make a meme, but I can’t decide who is CR and who is Trad...
Re: Ball lightning
Right?
It apparently just does whatever it wants to.
“St. Elmo’s Fire” is a similar phenomenon, when the masts of ships glow with electrical energy, but it at least tends to happen on the masts of ships.
And that phenomenon apparently occurs even less frequently than ball lightning, cuz the only images I can find of it are just like old timey drawings.
