More Lightning

Lightning Storm

What a neat night it was. It was storming and I could see the Doppler showing the rain leaving the area. I wanted to scoot out to see the lighting as the storm moved away. I could see a lot of lightning illuminating the clouds. I couldn't see any bolts but the cloud were really illuminated.

A lot of the lightning was above me but I couldn't hear much thunder. I turned on the radio to a weak music AM station. Lightning causes interference on AM frequencies. I wanted a faint signal with music so I could have music with lightning blasts. It was like watching professional fireworks and experiencing the booms. The radio allowed me to experience the lightning in an awesome way. Frequently, a large blast of lightning would occur but the radio told the rest of the story. After the large lightning illuminated everything, smaller lightning would occur and I couldn't see it but I sure could hear it. It was an awesome night with lightning all around me.
After a bit, I saw some lightning bolts way in the distance. I hopped into my truck and started tracking the storm. I drove to a high-spot a few miles outside of the city of San Marcos. I may have been in the city limits – not sure. I was watching the storm light up the clouds and saw quite a few smaller cloud-to-cloud bolts.

I took pictures of the illuminated areas showing the outline of clouds. In these pictures, the sky is totally dark at about 2 to 4am. Any light in the clouds is from the lightning. Look and you'll see some bolts.

One picture looks like a hand with a ball of lightning within its palm. WOW! I first thought of the hand of God sending lightning out. I can only imagine what it was like with the Tower of Babel.

The picture taken of the long bolt going almost vertical from ground to cloud was taken while the camera is sitting on my truck dash. It was raining and my wipers were going but with a lengthy exposure the movement of wipers had no appreciable effect. Now I know build a dash-mount camera support.

When lightning is close and severe, I'd prefer to be within the truck with its grounding effect from any lightning strikes. I have a camera bracket for mounting onto a partly open side window but then rain comes in and on the camera. So, I need to assemble a small self-supporting tarp to mount to the truck-cab roof to keep rain off. Of course, many times its not raining for lightning pictures since the lightning is moving off with the storm. Sometimes the rain is still coming down though.

I hope you enjoy these. I will continue to get more as the storms come through and in my travels as well.