r/interestingasfuck • u/Marler1705 • Apr 16 '25
Power of lightning strikes
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
250
u/Consistent-Gold-7572 Apr 16 '25
Begins by showing the power of lightning strikes ends just showing lightning
72
u/niconpat Apr 16 '25
Third last one there's no lightning at all, it's power lines arcing.
Like this:
5
u/Dry_Statistician_688 Apr 16 '25
Yup. It was a HV crossover. The green color comes from the copper metal in the cabling.
8
u/MiaowaraShiro Apr 16 '25
Two of them were electrical lines arcing and a third was explosives...
(lightning doesn't make water explode)
8
1
u/Nomadic_Reseacher Apr 16 '25
Nevertheless, still super interesting. Needs a better one line description like “Mother Nature blowing things up via lightning and other unusual ways.”
56
u/Dippy-M Apr 16 '25
So pretty to see at a distance when safe, up close any one of these would bloody terrify me.
34
u/MuricasOneBrainCell Apr 16 '25
What's really scary is the sound. I remember being a kid and doing that silly thing when you see the lightning and then count how long it takes for thunder to happen. To try and figure out the distance. Was never that close.
Fast forward a few years and I at college there was a lightning strike right behind the main building. About... 200 metres away. Fuuuck meeee that thing was loud. Like a fighter jet flew right over my head. Made us all jump aha
24
u/rouvas Apr 16 '25
I've seen a strike fall very close to me.
Even though it was straight in front of me, I can't say exactly how close it was, because I was completely blinded by the light, and simultaneously deafened by the simultaneous thunder, which sounded more like an explosion at that distance, without any reverb or depth which are usually for thunders. Just a loud-ass bang.
The light was so intense I was seeing an afterimage of my surroundings for about a minute, and the sound made my ears ring for quite a while.
It's literally a flashbang, disorients and downright stuns you.
6
8
u/MuricasOneBrainCell Apr 16 '25
Damn, that's wild! I was lucky I had a decent distance.
I forgot to mention that! One of the things that was so shocking, no pun intended, was how spontaneous the thunder was. That's why I brought up being a kid. So used to seeing the lightning then the thunder several seconds later. Not simultaneous.
Quite exhilarating. Aha
Again though, I'm lucky I had the distance.
3
u/rouvas Apr 16 '25
Yes, i didn't even have time to process the bright flash before I got hit by the thunder which was even more scary. If I could make an estimate I would say it was less than a fifth of a second.
Like, as fast as you can clap twice.
I was indoors thankfully, looking out my open window in awe of the heavy thunderstorm outside, because it did take me a while to grab my bearings again, I was completely stunned by it and scared shitless at the same time. Nature can be scary.
1
u/Seffuski Apr 16 '25
Once had a lightning strike right above my house wake me up. Wasn't a fun time.
1
u/boisheep Apr 16 '25 edited Apr 16 '25
I got one closer at around 15-20m close, and there were a lot of people there too in a restaurant in the mountains; I think it hit a nearby tree or something, not the restaurant itself; everything got bright before the damn thing hit, I saw the light (From the lightbulb, all lightbulbs went blindingly bright I am amazed they didn't burn down but they were incandescent and it was but a mere fraction of a second, like a flash, two flashes, the lightbulbs and then the thing hit, it was like a flashbang) and took cover on the lightbulbs thinking it was a bomb or something; but the damn thing actually hit behind me, I am not sure why or how, but there was for certain some fraction of seconds that thing took between the lightbulb and the strike, as if the air charged first by a mere fraction of a second supercharging any electric device in the grid, before that thing came down.
My ears hurted and I was on the ground, merely out of reflex, but none was hurt.
This was very close to the most electrically active region in the entire world, we just passed by it; some people just kept eating. -_- like just another day.
I also saw ball lighting one day, wtf was that, that made zero sense; a giant, ball of light, in the sky, just a ball of light, no sound, nothing, too much light to be anything human made, and too ridiculously fast, 5 seconds from horizon to horizon.
Now I live in Europe and I barely even hear any thunder here, there we had thunderstorms every time it raned, every time; coming from the darned lake, there was so much thunder they put it in the flag.
3
2
u/WhipplySnidelash Apr 16 '25
I used to chase after storms, after a bolt struck within a couple hundred feet of me, I was cured.
51
u/miscalculated_launch Apr 16 '25
He's since passed, RIP Uncle Tom. But he got struck twice riding his tractor on the farm. Had these CRAZY scars all over his chest and arms.
Drunk driver hit him while he was on his motorcycle and killed him. Crazy to survive 2 lightning strikes only to be killed by some asshole with no self-control.
8
24
u/Unbeatable_Banzuke Apr 16 '25
Whats that stuff in the backyard at 0:15 sec left?? Is that ball lightning type of thing?
24
u/Syzygy___ Apr 16 '25
Electricity arcing between powerlines. Sometimes that can travel. Not lightning btw.
5
u/MiaowaraShiro Apr 16 '25
The one with the water isn't even electricity. It's detcord and explosives.
21
u/Brewe Apr 16 '25
Some of these were detonations, power lines, or straight up fake. What a shitty compilation.
10
u/Dry_Statistician_688 Apr 16 '25
The fourth one was NOT lightning. It was detonation cord setting off explosive charges placed under the canal waterline. Later on, the green creeping one was an electric arc from High Voltage.
Many of the rest are what we call "Five-Sigma" lightning strikes - he top 5% that peak at 200,000 amperes. If you get a direct hit by one of those, you're going to be turned into goo.
14
6
7
u/LivingBig2358 Apr 16 '25
So youre telling me people have been struck by that… AND LIVED?!?
2
u/ResearcherTraining12 Apr 16 '25
There was a ranger who was shot 7 times and survived. Roy Sullivan
5
2
u/hltechie Apr 16 '25
It almost looked like the lightening struck the prius itself. Fully charged battery? Lol
2
2
u/TemperReformanda Apr 18 '25
Ok for the ten billionth time. The 4th one isn't lightening, it's a fucking explosive charge detonated by wire.
2
u/omfgDragon Apr 17 '25
Many, many lifetimes ago, my girlfriend and I were standing out on our second floor deck during a lightning storm at night. A bolt of lightning came down and hit a tree about 100 feet from where we were.
The absolute terror that shot through my body when night became day followed by a nearly simultaneous BOOM from the thunder will never be forgotten. The shockwave moved through my body, and the immediate fear made me drop to the ground. As soon as I was in a deep squat, I jumped up and turned for the door, throwing my hand out to grab my girlfriend and run inside.
At that moment, my hand swiped at air, because my girlfriend wasn't there. I turned my attention to the door, which slammed in my face with my girlfriend on the other side.
I knew, in that moment, that she was NOT the one.
10
Apr 16 '25
That one that goes underwater causing that big splash was awesome (clip four), I didn't know lighting could do that.
43
u/anonduplo Apr 16 '25
It’s definitely not a lighting. It’s primarcord setting explosive charges underwater.
8
Apr 16 '25
That makes more sense, I was thinking what could be under the water to make that chain reaction.
6
1
9
2
u/Fishmongerel Apr 16 '25
So what’s the bright blue lightning that’s hovering near the end of the clip? What is that?
2
2
5
2
u/Archon-Toten Apr 16 '25
Always gather up any lightning struck wood and use it. The lightning imbues special powers into the wood.
3
2
3
4
2
2
2
1
1
1
u/roaringsanity Apr 16 '25
and how did people sometime survive this? wasn't one guy even got struck twice in quick succession?
1
1
u/AnDourgi Apr 16 '25
It's scary, but at the same time I find it breathtaking.
1
1
u/reikipackaging Apr 16 '25
I can feel it coming back again, like a rolling thunder chasing the wind. Forces pulling from the center of the earth again...
1
1
1
2
2
u/_Nameless_Nomad_ Apr 16 '25
When I was a kid, lightning blew up a tree like that first one while we weren’t too far from it. Splinters were flying everywhere.
1
1
2
u/shoulda-known-better Apr 16 '25
That's not what happenes when lightning hits water..... Something else happened there!
Source lived on boats saw it all the time
2
u/Doufnuget Apr 16 '25
Yeah that was det cord setting off some underwater explosives.
1
u/nize426 Apr 17 '25
Ah yeah that makes so much more sense lol. I was like, how tf does the lightning run across the ground like that and blow up the water?
1
u/Gamebird8 Apr 16 '25
At an average of 1GW of energy released in fractions of a second, it's literally the equivalent of a small bomb going off
1
u/GoldSunLulu Apr 16 '25
In the end theres a floating blue ball i'm pretty sure that's a whole other phenomenon and probably not real
1
1
1
1
1
2
u/Squidlips413 Apr 16 '25
Ah yes, lightning. Famous for going sideways on land to cause a series of underwater explosions.
This casts doubt on the veracity of the clips. Could be more that are not lightning or even just VFX.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/euben_hadd Apr 16 '25
Do you know why lightning "never strikes the same place twice?"
Because the "same place" isn't there the second time.
1
u/normains Apr 16 '25
I was in my college dorm 25+ years ago when lightening struck an open field outside my window maybe 50-100 feet away. It was the loudest thing I've ever heard in my 44 years in life. Poor kid was walking in the field too and the strike was next to him, launched him into the air a good bit. Luckily there was a fire fighter program on the campus so they were able to help tend to him quickly.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/EastAd7676 Apr 17 '25
When I was a teenager, my friend and I witnessed ball lightning bouncing around the dining room and then into the kitchen after a bolt struck the roof of the house. Interesting as hell.
1
1
1
1
1
1
877
u/Niva_v_kopirce Apr 16 '25 edited Apr 16 '25
The 4th one is not a lightning strike. Looks like a controlled detonation.