HUGE lightning bolt! Washington State.

Originally posted by mutly
i cant find the old info i had, but did find one link to what this reminded me of.

last month downtown portland oregon heard a "boom" many said sounded like an explosion and the news came on and said allot of people were calling in but it was just a "super lightning bolt" to the west of where all the boom reports were coming in from. supposedly allot of electronics got fried also, not just where the bolt was reported, but where the boom was heard.

www.kgw.com...

that was the only link i could find without more digging. maybe they are related. whether they really are rare super bolts or some other phenomena.

"I just heard a very loud boom nearby my home and couldn't determine if it was an explosion or storm related," wrote Joy Peery, from east of I-5 near the Terwilliger curves. "We just saw an incredibly bright flash followed shortly by an unbelievably loud boom in the area of 78th and Oleson road in Tigard at around 10 after 9 pm," wrote a KGW viewer named Mark. "It was bigger than anything I've witnessed in 15 years in this location."

This is exactaly what i experienced. I'm so glad i can take off the crazy face off my .... face. Yah, i really appreciate this!

As a true Washyourhandsington Native, having been born 'n' raised, I can definitely say that I've witnessed much harder poundings via thunderstorm that what I heard. Windows rattle, appliances hesitate. Nothing really new, however...

It's been a big #-hog of crappy weather here for a month and a half straight! THAT''s not cool.....

reply to post by Anttyk47

i had a video once abt. haarp and they said it can produce a giant lightning bolt..would not want to be close to one when it struck.
of course, sometimes the storms are just bad and scary. i am in florida now but recall back when i was
a child..eons ago it seems..the lightning in n.c. was very intense and after the storm there was a strong
smell of ozone..i rarely smell that anymore..wonder why.

Ok I am lost, were did this happen at? I am in the Spokane area.

I'm in Redmond - but I wasn't there at the time you heard it, so I'm no help there, except to say that if it was intense enough to make you start a thread...then it must have been something other than your ordinary thunder/lightening. It's so difficult to convey in plain text just how intense a personal experience is to another person.

However, as I got closer to home I was astonished to see snow everywhere. I knew we were expecting thunderstorms...but SNOW? My son just had spring break last week...wth is it doing snowing AND sticking. I will laugh my butt off if the kids have a snow day tomorrow.

I was in Bellevue when this storm hit. It must have been right overhead when you heard/felt it. It's just lightning and thunder. A couple of flashes went off right when I was in my jeep during lunch, which is about the time I decided to get back inside the shop (my jeep has a 4 foot cb antenna aaaand I'm 6'4" ).

reply to post by Anttyk47


Radiation != electricity, especially not lightning. Nuclear reactions don't produce electricity (as such, anyway, though they will produce electrons depending on the particular type of reaction) they produce heat energy, which is used to power turbines that generate electricity through motion and magnetism. (Unless you want a really really long explanation, I won't go into further detail.)

In the worst case possible scenario, radioactive particles in the atmosphere somehow managing to reach from japan to you in Washington State, would still not be causing lightning. Lightning is electrons grounding to earth, nothing at all to do with radioactive particles.

Take a deep breath, read some, get informed, allay your fears. There are plenty of real things to be afraid of without moving into hysteria and hyperbole.

you mean something like this? www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by Anttyk47
Found this. This is odd! I can't help but wonder about Japan, but i have doubts radiation has something to do with it, who knows if it could =O

Yes, it probably could in sufficient amounts. Radiation produces ionization. Ionized air is more electrically conductive than otherwise and can cause a host of electrical phenomena.

In a more dramatic example, nuclear explosion in space can irradiate the upper atmosphere so suddenly creating a more powerful form of electromagnetic pulse and covering a much larger area. Note, that lightning is a natural source of electromagnetic pulse!

Originally posted by mutly
i cant find the old info i had, but did find one link to what this reminded me of.

last month downtown portland oregon heard a "boom" many said sounded like an explosion and the news came on and said allot of people were calling in but it was just a "super lightning bolt" to the west of where all the boom reports were coming in from. supposedly allot of electronics got fried also, not just where the bolt was reported, but where the boom was heard.

www.kgw.com...

that was the only link i could find without more digging. maybe they are related. whether they really are rare super bolts or some other phenomena.

Lightening also makes a loud "Boom" when it hits a transformer box...that
really is a loud sound and bright flash.

If that lightening was anything like what we get here near the sound...bright flash and loud boom...
and it's done. No time to pop off a picture, it was snowing here I think about the same time as you had
your thunder storm...only for a few minutes tho...and blew through.

Enjoy the show...

Off topic I know,
Just wanted to show you an old photo of mine from 2004...
Long shutter speed.

Awesome photo Tygart!

I'm traveling back east soon, hoping to photograph some lightning with my D40.

reply to post by Anttyk47


I thought the same thing about the lightening we had in Alabama in Monday's storms... it was brighter and bigger and louder than anything I've ever heard. Oh, and I used to think you couldn't "hear" lightening", but you can!!! It's a sizzle, popping sound...

Be safe... Round 2 is coming this next monday for us here in the South.

Peace

I dont know about the one the OP brought up, but the portland one hit me as odd because where the bolt was "detected" was not the same place the "boom" was reported. The majority of the reports for the boom were closer to the water front where many booms have been reported in the past. the authorities and media in the past blame those booms on pipe bombs and such. There are at least 1 if not more threads on the previous booms here on ATS.

any reports of electronics dieing yet? last months one in portland had that, in the areas the boom was heard not where the "super" lightning bolt was.