On the evening of Saturday, 23 May 2020 a strong linear storm passed over the South Dakota Badlands. As the sun began to set, the stunning orange and pink light illuminated the backside of the storm and its trailing stratiform precipitation area. As is common with mesoscale convective systems, this backside region produced numerous horizontally extensive lightning flashes many of which contained positive cloud-to-ground return strokes. Also common with these types of flashes, negative leaders raced through the layered positive charge regions above cloud base, while trailing positive leaders propagated below cloud base in trail of the negative leaders presumably through negative screening layer charge or negatively charge rain. This spectacular “spider” lightning is my personal favorite and this spectacle was one I will not soon forget. My daughter and I filmed the flashes with every camera we had available and the video below shows our best captures. Recordings were made from 30 to 1,500 images per second.
Trying to understand and explain Zeus' Tantrums…or what is better known as…Lightning
ZT Research
- Home
- Education
- Electrification of Clouds
- The Initiation and Growth of Lightning
- Positive and Negative Leaders Behave Differently
- Cloud Flashes
- Ground Flashes
- Upward Lightning from Tall Objects
- Upper Atmosphere Lightning
- The 5 Ways Lightning Can Injure or Kill You
- Revising What We Were Taught In School About Lightning…And What We Teach Going Forward
- Lightning for Storm Chasers and Photographers
- Sources
- UPLIGHTS
- Publications
- “Lightning Rod” Van
- About
Sunset lightning in the South Dakota Badlands
Follow Blog via Email
Twitter
- @cschultzwx @westy160991 @stormfrontfreak @CTVCalgary @660NEWS @CBCCalgary @GlobalCalgary @weathernetwork… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
- @westy160991 @stormfrontfreak @CTVCalgary @660NEWS @CBCCalgary @GlobalCalgary @weathernetwork @cityofcalgary Is the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
- RT @KyleTWN: I wrote a blog! What caused the thundersnow in Calgary on Monday night? Click the link to find out! *Skip to the bottom for… 1 day ago
- RT @ForbesScience: The Polar Vortex and climate change - Here are 3 things people get wrong about that discussion on.forbes.com/6010HiLho 4 days ago
- @olenhogenson @jamesinho @AlertWildfire @KMPHFOX26 Looks like it could be the SpaceX Starlink trains from their latest launch. 6 days ago