Lightning Inside of a WaterSpout..Unbelievable Picture

Ok i have found out some more info regarding this subject. Yes it is possible for lightning to form from the parent cloud of a waterspout. Something i seriously doubted. The article i just read said however that it is extremely rare for it to do so.

Waterspouts, in contrast, are attached to cumulus clouds that normally top out at 18,000 or 20,000 feet/5,486 or 6,096 m. Sometimes a waterspout’s parent cloud might produce a few lightning bolts, but often there’s no lightning.

So if your friend not only captured lightning from a waterspout which is rare to begin with then he also captured a very very rare event of one inside a waterspout which i would assume as being so extremely rare as to warrant being sent to a local weather station. I think it would give him his 15 minutes of fame.

Anyways the article goes on to state more about the formatioon of waterspouts and again cites that there would be a water spray being forced upwards as the rope of cloud is formed. With a waterspout of this size there should be considerable spray shown in the pic. There is none.

As the waterspout grows stronger, it begins kicking up a ring of sea spray around the dark spot.

As the wind swirling around the funnel grows to around 40 mph/64 kph, it begins to carry the spray upward in a circular pattern known as a spray vortex. The funnel begins to become more and more visible as the low air pressure inside it cools the air enough for water vapor to begin condensing into tiny droplets. The funnel that you see is really a swirling cloud.

So again i say fake. Sorry but just my opinion and my final one at that.

Here is my source of info. Click here to read article on Waterspouts

reply to post by earth2


WOW...

Pardon the expression but nature is a total badass.

Absolutely incredible, star and flag.

This picture is real, dont know what it is but it is real. He wanted me to make sure I credited him so here is his websites.

www.facebook.com...#!/profile.php?id=100000849566796

gallery.mac.com...

tis fake...i see no reflection in the water!

Mr Waddy Thompson says, ...

"Had the lightning shot been camera motion, I think that the ground image would have also been blurred. It just looks like a lightning bolt inside a vortex."

Here is another pic from Mr Waddy Thompson also shot in Florida, ...


Waddy says,
"Here is another interesting weather shot. Sundogs are fairly common, but one like this is quite unusual."
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/f6fd64d64b2cb217.jpg[/atsimg]
Copyrighted Photo by and Courtesy of Waddy Thompson



[edit on 25-5-2010 by earth2]

reply to post by earth2

I have to wonder about the waterspout too. The cloud doesn't seem to be of the right type to produce a waterspout. There is also no sign of the water spray which is found at the base of a spout. Waterspouts are not so jagged, they show smooth curves along their length.

It looks like a fat lightning strike.


That is not a sundog. It is an irridescent cloud. Pretty though.
www.atoptics.co.uk...


[edit on 5/25/2010 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


If that is all it is is a lightning stike then that is still an amazing picture because i have never in my life seen a lightning strike look like that.

It looks fat like it has a force field around it or something.

reply to post by earth2

I agree. A lightning bolt is actually composed of a series of strikes. I think that might account for the appearance. Here's another with a lot of detail. Though different.

It looks like someone pissed off Sauron again, Where the hell is Gandolf when you need him.

I personally believe this could happen. It's the Florida KEYS, where there are many places in which a road would have water on both sides. There could be another bay on the other side of that road.

No scientific evidence to back it up, but I live on the eastern edge of one of the great lakes and have seen tornados jump from land to water and directly form a spout until the water becomes too heavy and it dissipates. I've only seen it happen a couple of times as I think it needs to be quite a powerful storm. Usually the tornadic storms coming through here die off before hitting the lake because of the cooler air over the water as I understand it. Maybe there are other reasons too.

*shrug* I suppose the lightening could have been attracted to both the power pole and water. That's quite a few things lined up perfectly for this to happen though

Originally posted by earth2
Friend of mine on facebook took these pics the other day, unbelievable is what I say.
His caption reads,
"Lightning inside a waterspout. Shot from the back of Kenny J, a sport fisher while on the way out to the reef to fish for snapper. Little Torch Key, mm 28 Florida Keys. It was noisy for a little while. The lightning was about a mile from the boat."
Is this what it is, Lightning in a Waterspout?
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/21c1c2c07e6f1bc8.jpg[/atsimg]
Copyrighted Photo by and Courtesy of Waddy Thompson
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/fa75740143b9dc53.jpg[/atsimg]
Copyrighted Photo by and Courtesy of Waddy Thompson
[edit on 25-5-2010 by earth2]

Thanks for that, really cool!

When someone carries a camera everywhere and posts daily pics of what they run into, it is so uncalled for to go insisting they are making up some huge fake lie about a picture. My dad's a photographer and anybody who has a camera in use often enough long enough is going to get some occasional mindblowing shots just by statistical chance alone frankly. I seriously doubt that PhD meteorologists are making these critiques lol. If he is a regular photographer and no history of fraud and says it's a regular photo, I see no reason not to give any benefit of the doubt to his integrity.

Whether it is a water spout with lightning I don't know but it sure LOOKS like that. My dad used to live in Florida and they get some unbelievable weather that is lightning and water and wind at the same time.

RC

Thanks for posting the pic. It's something I've never seen in person but I do believe it's possible. I know water conducts electricity pretty good as many times as I've been shocked when I touch some water. I believe the lightning would follow the path of least resistance and travel down and/or up the path of the spout and do it all in a flash. Sometimes I wonder how are tornadoes and water spouts different? I believe the formation may be caused by different reasons but I'm not an expert on the subject.

Look's like just a lightning bolt to me. Maybe just a fraction of a millisecond before the main burst.
On a side note. Sitting on a boat, lightning all around me and the appearance of tornado weather = serious cajones

It is just lightning, you have to remember he said this photo was taken on a boat. Now when is the last time you were on a boat and it was completely still? Exactly never, the movement from the boat while taking a picture would cause the image to distort a little especially lightning moving around 270,000 mph.

Originally posted by earth2
Friend of mine on facebook took these pics the other day, unbelievable is what I say.

His caption reads,

"Lightning inside a waterspout. Shot from the back of Kenny J, a sport fisher while on the way out to the reef to fish for snapper. Little Torch Key, mm 28 Florida Keys. It was noisy for a little while. The lightning was about a mile from the boat."

Is this what it is, Lightning in a Waterspout?


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/21c1c2c07e6f1bc8.jpg[/atsimg]
Copyrighted Photo by and Courtesy of Waddy Thompson

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/fa75740143b9dc53.jpg[/atsimg]
Copyrighted Photo by and Courtesy of Waddy Thompson



[edit on 25-5-2010 by earth2]

If you look at the picture its NOT a waterspout its inland and not on the water.



You can see it doesnt reach the water surface get your friend to post the exif data for the picture it tells the shutter speed etc.



[edit on 26-5-2010 by wmd_2008]

Just saw the pic details 1/8th of second movement will have blurred the lightning and given the effect NOT water but just a blur effect BUT its a great picture whatever way you look at it.

Originally posted by earth2

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/fa75740143b9dc53.jpg[/atsimg]
Copyrighted Photo by and Courtesy of Waddy Thompson

Can anyone post a high resolution version of this picture? This one is really low resolution. I looked on his gallery link and can't find it there, but he's got a great gallery. And apparently I need a facebook account to see his facebook version and I don't have one and don't want one, but I would like to see it in more detail. The enlargement posted is nice but it cuts off the top.

After looking at this guys gallery, I doubt it's a fake as some have suggested.

I have doubts about it being a waterspout but I can't rule it out yet with 100% certainty.

I'm wondering if there's any possibility it might be some type of shock wave from the lightning bolt condensing moisture in the atmosphere, but he said the shutter speed was 0.125 second so I'm not sure this is what we see, and also if it was a shock wave, I'd expect the lightning to be more centered in the shock wave.

Maybe we should ask him how humid the air was, since a condensation effect from a shock wave would only occur if the air was humid:
Condensation cloud

When a nuclear weapon or a large amount of a conventional explosive is detonated in sufficiently humid air, the "negative phase" of the shock wave causes a rarefaction (reduction in density) of the air surrounding the explosion, but not contained within it. This rarefaction results in a temporary cooling of that air, which causes a condensation of some of the water vapor contained in it. When the pressure and the temperature return to normal, the Wilson cloud dissipates.[1]

Since heat does not leave the affected air mass, this change of pressure is adiabatic, with an associated change of temperature. In humid air, the drop in temperature in the most rarefied portion of the shock wave can bring the air temperature below its dew point, at which moisture condenses to form a visible cloud of microscopic water droplets. Since the pressure effect of the wave is reduced by its expansion (the same pressure effect is spread over a larger radius), the vapor effect also has a limited radius.

en.wikipedia.org...

The outward-moving pulse that results is a shock wave, [2] similar in principle to the shock wave formed by an explosion, or at the front of a supersonic aircraft. More recently, the consensus around the cause of the shock wave has been eroded by the observation that measured overpressures in simulated lightning are greater than what could be achieved by the amount of heating found. Alternative proposals rely on electrodynamic effects of the massive current acting on the plasma in the bolt of lightning.

It looks similar to a shock wave but I'm not sure the exposure timing, the duration of the lightning flash, etc allow the shock wave (or illuminated condensation droplets formed by it) to be photographed under these conditions.

But if I can see a higher resolution picture, I might get some more clues about what this photo is showing.

I am happy to accept this photograph as genuine. I'm no expert, but twenty-plus years in advertising have taught me a bit about image manipulation. I also have many close friends who are professional photographers.

By the way,

Originally posted by smurfy
No better conductor for electricity than water

Pure water is an insulator. Look it up.

[edit on 26/5/10 by Astyanax]

It’s a beautiful picture for sure, but I have seen water spouts, and they have never looked like the one in the photo (too long, narrow, and wavy). It’s more likely that the photographer is taking some poetic license with his explanations of his photographs to hype them. I believe that what he captured was a strike that was pulsating, and as the bolt changed its intensity his exposure on the camera left a ghost image, like a motion blur. As to his photo of the cloud, again I feel it’s a bit misleading as we do get many iridescent clouds here in Florida. Every time they launch a staged rocket from the cape, the fuel leakage from the staging creates a upper atmospheric fuel/ice cloud, they are technically not sundogs. I could be incorrect on this one, but that is my feeling from personal experience with the weather, space launches, etc. down here.

Originally posted by wmd_2008
If you look at the picture its NOT a waterspout its inland and not on the water.

You can see it doesnt reach the water surface get your friend to post the exif data for the picture it tells the shutter speed etc.

It could be on the water on the other side of the piece of land. There are lots of long thin islands, breakwaters, etc in Florida.

Originally posted by fizzy1
really think this is bogus and a hoax.

There is a very visible pole of somekind in the background behind the so called funnel of the waterspout. Also part of a tree is visible behind the cloud formation so i again claim fake because this is obviously over land. water spouts do not form over land. There would be visible signs of the water spout from an earlier stage in its cycle of the ocean surface being swirled around and water being kicked up and waves formed. I am linking thks article i found as well as a snippet from the article.

We can plainly see that the event happened over a tall, high-line electrical tower that conducted the lightening to the ground. A quite common phenomena in that regard. The water spout simple became the conductor for the atmospheric charge to the tower making a natural circuit.That is reason enough for me to believe that the whole affair is real.

OK. Let's move on. I get tired of so many self-styled Photoshop experts endlessly arguing over something that is no more important than which cereal box they reached for that morning.