Bizarre weather last night in LA

Up here in vancouver, bc, we rarely ever get lightning storms, but in june I sat at my kitchen window with a few beers and watched something very very similar to this... no thunder but what a show! a solid 1 hour and 30 mins..
I miss storm chasing.

reply to post by Terra Serranum


i also saw this same thing at about 12:30 am last night! it was like lightning but it happened every 10 to 40 seconds. i live in the LA area. i got up to check if it was my outside lights but then i saw that it was like lighting...its so weird...and it wasn't even raining out. i thought maybe it was my imagination or dream but when i saw this posted it must not have been. does anyone have any idea what this was? maybe aliens! no, just kidding.

Originally posted by Terra Serranum
I think this is the right place to post this. Last night was the strangest thing. I don't know if this happens anywhere else, but I've never seen weather like it here in Los Angeles. I live about 3 1/2 miles from LAX in Hawthorne.

Last night around 12:45 our security system went off, got a call from Brinks saying there was a fire detected. Looked around the house and there was nothing, my dogs were freaking out and I looked out the window and it seriously looked like there were strobe lights outside. I didn't hear any thunder so I went outside, the sky was flashing like mad, very fast bursts, couldn't see any typical lightning, maybe it was our polluted skies or the clouds, very weird. Went back to bed but then about 40 minutes the alarm went off again, dogs were getting more and more anxious, almost hyperventilating they were so scared. Like they get around July 4th, they're terrified of fireworks. The lightning storm lasted hours, no thunder at all. The alarm went off 3 more times. When I dragged myself out of bed at 5AM everything was calm as normal.

Very, very strange.

Anyone else in the area experience this?

Possibly a traveler from the future coming back to hang out with the beautiful people in LA...What do you think?

I ended up watching this from my balcony for about two hours last night. Absolutely amazing. Something that I didn't expect to see around here. From my POV (17th floor in LB) the skies seemed to be pretty clear - I didn't see any sort of massive cloud that the lightning was coming from. It was just in a little bit of haze. Definitely breathtaking though.

-S

I also saw such heat lightnings here over Germany 3 days ago. It was late at night on Tuesday, I think around 1am, when I was going to bed and looked out of the window, when I saw this. There were this lightnings in the clouds, looked like small round spots in the clouds, without thunder, too. I saw it 3 or 4 times, always on the same place in the clouds. First I was a little bit scared - thougt about Ufos , but then I was like - this is only a thunder lightning and then I had to sleep

Originally posted by somenthingbeautiful
reply to post by CaptGizmo

 

But is this "Heat lightning" able to influence alarm system ??? Why it went off three times ??
What do know about ???

The heat lightening should not effect you alarm system...unless you had a series of electrical brown outs.We have them here in Maryland(U.S.)

Brownout
where the voltage level is below the normal minimum level specified for the system. Systems supplied with three-phase electric power also suffer brownouts if one or more phases are absent, at reduced voltage, or incorrectly phased. Such malfunctions are particularly damaging to electric motors. Some brownouts, called voltage reductions, are made intentionally to prevent a full power outage. This will usually mean that your lights will flicker and sometimes it is so fast you don't even notice.However it will sometimes cause your digital clocks to have to be reset and sometimes not.It can cause alarm systems to go off as well.

[edit on 8/16/2008 by CaptGizmo]

Remember Close Encounters (one of them), where the UFO came in a cloud. And it was lightening, if I remember the movie correctly. We certainly have had some interesting posts in the past few days.

Troy

I saw it in Venice CA also, pretty trippy, however, NOTHING compared to what I saw in Stephenville TX (yes! That Stephenville) when working on a reality show there for a month last summer. It was similar to this, but WAY more widespread and energetic, Nevertheless, awesome show last night

I live just northwest of Los Angeles, about 7 miles from the beach and we got quite a show as well. The lightening was beautiful. The thing that stood out for me was the intensity of the thunder. I was just getting to sleep (the olympics are keeping me up too late) around 1:30am, and there was the loudest tear through the sky that I've ever heard. I literally jumped out of my bed and ducked for cover as my house was literally shaking. My tired brain thought it was some sort of explosion, like a plane exploding above my house or something. Seriously, the loudest thing ever. There was more after that, but nothing quite like the first one. It must have been right over my house. A friend who lives about 2 miles from me on the other side of the freeway had flash-flood type rain and we had none. Really weird and cool at the same time!!

I have seen the most amazing lightning storms of my life this summer in the Midwestern U.S. The storms here have been abnormal.

reply to post by CaptGizmo



Thank you very much for your reply.

You were clear and detailed !!
Thanks !!

it's right that the weather phenomenon are something very strange and the dry storm is nice to see especially during the journey because you have more color in the sky than in the night and without noise and without rain , this joke of light in a sky with all color , the nature give somethimes a right show.
In south of france there are often these dry storm with the hot and warm temperature that we have in summer season as in california ...i like very much these nice phenomenom and can take it when it's possible , it's great ..
What 's a pity that nobody spite of you , didn't think to take some pictures or video of this event yesterday night above los angeles , i think that it was great

I suspect that were high altitude jet stream lightning
Regarding the fire alarm and the dogs the most suitable reason is that most of the windows in the house are closed and it is hot inside trigerring the fire alrams and the dogs are feeling hot and want to go outside into the cold air

[edit on 16-8-2008 by peacejet]

I believe you mentioned that the Central Station (Alarm Company) signaled that it was your fire alarm that was tripped?

Having worked somewhat extensively with Security Directors, personnel within the wholesale and retail contract monitoring industry etc, perhaps I can shed some light on what might have happened here.

Most modern smokes (heat/smoke/fire detectors) use dual detection. Heat and smoke. Heat detectors probably weren't the issue here, but the smoke detector. Typically, a smoke detector with both technologies is and Ionization chamber with a source of ionizing radiation. Typically ~ 1/5000th of a gram of Americium-241 which provides a source of alpha particles or helium nuclei.

The chamber itself is 2 plates, with voltage applied to both sides of the plate, one positively charged the other negatively charged.

The Americium-241 kicks the electrons off of the surrounding air (oxygen and nitrogen). The positively charged oxygen and nitrogen is attracted to the negatively charged plate in the Ionization chamber and the electrons are attracted to the positively charged plate creating a constant electrical current between the 2 plates within the chamber.
When smoke is present, smoke particles will attach themselves to the ions and neutralize them causing them to never reach the plate. This causes a drop in electrical current (that was steady between the 2 plates) and triggers an alarm. You can notice the same effect if you were to place the detector too close to a bathroom while taking a very steamy hot shower.

What is likely here, is that due to the "weather anamoly" passing by, the surrounding oxygen and nitrogen was already highly positively charged that the ionization process (the Alpha Particles) didn't have a sufficient amount of electrons to kick away from it. This, too, would cause a drop in electrical current between the 2 charged plates enough to trigger an alarm to your central station.

Just my $.02


AB1

Edited for Spelling Errors

[edit on 16-8-2008 by alphabetaone]

Is this your lightning storm?
Wasn't it a strange lightning storm that happened a month or so ago and started the fires in California?
Also, I don't think I have ever seen heat lightning like that shown in the video, what could cause it to set off your alarm system?

www.mercurynews.com...

Lightning fires burn in Central Coast wilderness
The Associated Press
Article Launched: 08/15/2008 04:12:22 PM PDT

SANTA MARIA, Calif.—Firefighters struggled Friday to reach several remote fires sparked by lightning along the Central Coast.

Crews were called Friday to five fires in the southern parts of the Los Padres National Forest that burned a combined 220 acres. No structures were threatened and no injuries were reported.

By Friday night, firefighters had contained several other small blazes in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, leaving crews the challenge of reaching the remaining fires in remote and rugged terrain of the national forest.

About 125 acres of heavy chaparral burned in the three-fire Buckhorn Complex, about 18 miles east of Santa Maria in the San Rafael wilderness.

To the south, U.S. Forest Service smoke jumpers parachuted near the 75-acre Manzanita Fire and to build a temporary helicopter landing spot to deliver more crews Saturday morning. The crew planned to work through Friday night to build fire lines, said U.S. Forest Service fire spokesman Joe Pasinato.

Other crews constructed a helicopter landing spot near the Owl Fire, which consumed at least 20 acres of dense sage and chaparral in a roadless area.

Pasinato said seven tankers, five helicopters and 80 firefighters were battling the fires, with about 170 personnel en route or on order.

The fires were ignited by an unusually intense rash of lightning strikes early Friday.

The National Weather Service said the storm system formed early Friday
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over Redondo Beach, south of Los Angeles, and spawned more than 400 lightning strikes as it moved up the coast.

"It was sort of a rare event," said meteorologist Steven Van Horn, adding that most of the strikes occurred over the Pacific Ocean.

No new storms were forecast for the region, he said.

Lightning sparked some 2,000 fires in northern California earlier this summer.

Lightning fires burn in Central Coast wilderness

about dog , much dog tall or little are much afraid about storm , dry or not dry , the strong light and sometimes the big noise which comes from the sky , the dog try to hide under the bed ,under the table , in the cellar , often they tremble . all animals even wild , sense the danger before us .
The dog , cat and also birds sense the strange and strong climatic phenomenom before , during and after when it's finished ... sort of natural alarm that we haven't ...

www.latimes.com...
another short vid
just found
-amazing lights- luv those natural shows

it is the link about los angeles time with video of this storm last night in
los angeles ... Its right that it was nice and impressive !!!

www.latimes.com... 7905.story

My dog is afraid of thunder as well, so afraid that I am convinced as she gets older one of our oklahoma storms are going to be what does her in, either that or the fourth of july. I actually keep a stash of doggy valium for her because she will hyperventilate until she nearly loses consciousness and also urinate on herself. a 120 lb dog losing all bladder control is not fun at all!
We get lots of heat lightening and electrical storms here and because of the association of lightening with thunder she will still panic even when no thunder can be heard by us.

I have seen her start to salivate and shake and checked the radar to see the storm front still half a state away. So who knows what they are sensing with their intense sense of smell and hearing!

As I stated above we live in Oklahoma, and if you want wacky weather, just spend a week or two here, the weather is fickle, extreme and sometimes downright amazing. But there is generally one thing you can count on, August will be so hot you can barely breathe when you are outside, temps of 102-105 plus with 90% humidity are typical.

right now it is 68 degrees and sprinkling, with an expected high of only 81, that is unheard of!!

reply to post by Terra Serranum


Why did you keep resetting the alarm?

If it were causing so much distress to your animals, and you knew that there was no immediate risk, why didn't you just turn it off.

Those loud sirens that hurt our ears, hurt dogs ears something like 4 times as much.

If there was no thunder, I am of the opinion that the Alarm was causing the fear to your animals.
DocMoreau