Rare Lightning Travelling from Ground To Clouds In Slow Motion

[@thelightninghunter23]

Lightning expert here. This is what's called "Lightning-triggered Upward Lightning". It's a bit different from common cloud-to-ground lightning where a downward leader attaches to an upward leader very close to the ground. The first thing you see is a brightening of the clouds. These are negative-polarity leaders discharging a positive charge layer inside the cloud. This discharging causes a sudden electric field change which induces an upward positive (not negative) leader from a tall structure over the horizon-- possibly the Golden Gate Bridge or a skyscraper or radio mast. This positive leader runs into a negative charge layer that's just below the clouds and meanders around, brightening as it finds pockets of more intense negative charge. Eventually the positive leaders start branching and this is when the fun begins. These branches are poorly ionized and there are fast bidirectional leaders that form around the tips of the decayed positive branches. They are called "recoil leaders" and these are the strobing channel segments that we see later on in the video. The bright event that you discuss throughout the video is actually quite interesting. I've looked at the footage multiple times and it looks like the brightening originates from the first branch point and progresses through the main branch. This tells me that there was current cutoff in the main branch near the branch point which suddenly became bridged, allowing much higher current to flow back to the tower and increasing electric potential at the leader tips. I record high-speed lightning video with the same model of camera (it's a Mark 5 instead of a 7, still records 960fps) and I upload the recordings to this channel so if anyone wants to see more high-speed lightning video then feel free to stop by! --Chris K

[@jons2447]

COOL!

[@u2mister17]

So if electricity is flowing electrons what do you call flowing protons? Please explain how a grounded tower can have a positive charge. Personally I figure all the motion is electrons looking for positively charged ions and if the moving electron stream finds a better source of electrons (THE GROUND) that is when all positive space is nutralized. I was standing in my kitchen one day and The Longest Lasting (5 secs.) lightning bolt I witnessed in my 65 years in the midwest was using my 185 foot deep well head 30 feet away. My wife was standing in front of me and as my jaw was slowly dropping the light made her look like a skeletonized x-ray.

[@thelightninghunter23]

@@u2mister17 Electricity is the movement of electrical charge-- this can involve free electrons and positive and negative ions. On a positive leader, negative charge moves away from the leader tip and the tip has a positive charge relative to its environment. If the electric field at the tip is strong enough, further electrical breakdown occurs where electrons are stripped from atoms which heats the air into a highly-conductive plasma state, thus growing the leader. The charge at ground level depends on the charges in the clouds above, and this determines the polarity of ground flashes. Generally the main cloud charge is negative and the ground becomes positively charged due to induction.

[@bigphillAchtung]

@@thelightninghunter23 ive seen a lot of people try to describe this but you are by far the best Chris! Excellent job :)

[@erinmcdonald7781]

@@thelightninghunter23 Like your clear explanations...got a new subscriber ⚡😎

[@Robb403]

That was probably from me. My parents always said I have a lot of potential.

[@dyn12864]

Nice one

[@TEX-X]

Pun master strikes again

[@loops7624]

I like it

[@teenstormchaser5543]

I was there I’m the lightning he’s not lying

[@TheWeatherbuff]

Thank you Scott. On behalf of my fellow meteorologists, we thank you for the treat. Personally, I'm glad you caught this and shared it. I'll be referring my colleagues to this one. Much appreciated!

[@kenycharles8600]

Do you ever confer with some of the excellent meteorologists in Oklahoma?

[@TheWeatherbuff]

@@kenycharles8600 Quite often, yes. Mostly SPC and NOAA folks, but I also have a lot of friends in media all over the state. I am in Denver.

[@geraldhenrickson7472]

In college I was instructed most lightening is ground to cloud in the early stages of a strike. That was 20 years ago. Wonderful video. Thanks.

[@educateer]

I remember the Physics students at Uni 30 years ago telling me that lightening goes up and not down and showed me pictures from their textbooks showing it. So, not rare that it goes up but the path that lightening takes is amazing.

[@rabidtarg]

Not the leader, though. The leader is usually from the cloud down and then the main bolt goes up. The leader is much harder to film. He thinks he's got a leader going up from the ground, which is less common, but does happen.

[@charlesball6519]

Various weathermen have said that positive lighting is rare. Its what goes from ground to cloud. The most common is negative, which is cloud to ground.

[@scottmanley]

rabidtarg yeah the reason I believe this has to be a Leader is that the return is effectively instantaneous at these frame rates.

[@Vodhin]

@@scottmanley The earth has a much higher electrical potential (read: more free electrons) than the atmosphere does, and is why lightning almost always travels from the ground up to the sky. It is also why most lightning is seen forking downwards as these free electrons come together like streams feeding a river. It is also why you should always drop to the ground if your hair stands on end (well, _you_ may need a hairy friend nearby that you can monitor).

[@jokerace8227]

It is amazing to watch the electrons trace a momentary path of least resistance in a dynamically changing 3D volume of vorticity and vapor.

[@sleeptyper]

I guess the bright spots were coming from the bolt traveling horizontally towards (or away) from the camera.

[@kirkc9643]

When the angry pixies escape..

[@Echo5Mike]

Directed here from Suspicious0bservers. Thank you for this rare capture and opportunity for learning from your channel.

[@charlespiro6917]

Suspicious Observers sent me Great catch.

[@Moctipotili1]

Eyes open, no fear, be safe everybody

[@JustinWillisDevil240Z]

isn't that channel saying that man made climate change isn't real or some nonsense?

[@charlespiro6917]

@@JustinWillisDevil240Z i have never heard Ben say that.But CO2 is not pollution thats from me though so there you have it.

[@lunakid12]

@@charlespiro6917 What "pollution" is is a matter of (one's favorite) definition anyway, so what we call it is less relevant than actually dealing with it in some way or another.

[@charlespiro6917]

@David Shaw it sure is Sir.

[@dmentedphotos]

That was amazing to watch. I live in the southeast where storms like this can be an every evening occurence and have always been fascinated by taking (still) pictures of lightning. Back in the days of film cameras, I would burn the batteries so fast that I ended up buying a completely manual camera just for that purpose. I love finding nights like this and getting myself into a position where I can be beside the storm to try to capture the bolts that come from the top, outside the cloud, and have been very lucky quite a few times to get some pretty amazing shots. Thanks for sharing the slow motion shot as it was just amazing!

[@Horus9339]

Sent over by Suspicious Observer, thank you for recording this. A 'shocking' slowmo. ;)

[@Michael-jl9ne]

The lightning woke us up too, it was quite a show! Very interesting to see how the lightning travels!

[@alfredsutton7233]

Beautiful photography Scott, and a great explanation that follows. Another amazing gift you’ve given to all of us.

[@willrobbinson]

fantastic to watch the lightning stages all in a second or so , a lot is revealed in slow mo , thanks so much

[@yellowbrian]

This has been a very interesting few weeks here in the bay. The fires sparked are the worst part but the storms themselves have been great to watch. Thank you for capturing this video

[@andrewparker318]

I live in Orinda which is right near Walnut Creek, and it was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen! I’ve never seen lightning here in the Bay Area and I was up all morning watching it

[@Olysk8er]

1.21 gigawatts!?! Great Scott!

[@porkchop1948]

NICE! Great capture. Featured on S0. Sent us here to see the entire video. So cool!

[@tbirdland]

I love so much that Scott has transitioned from video game youtuber to science uncle

[@capcisi]

Here from Suspicious Observers. Great plasma shot. It reminds me of fungal growth in a petri dish on nutrient poor media. Liked & Subscribed. Thanks Scott for the diligence

[@deusexaethera]

Lightning ALWAYS grows from both endpoints at once. Tendrils of opposite-charge ions extend up from the ground and down from the clouds until they meet somewhere in the middle; this is why people often report they feel their hair standing on-end a few seconds before they get hit by lightning. The path the lightning _appears_ to take is the result of whether the path branches more near the ground or near the clouds, because the end with fewer branching paths has to conduct more amperage and thus the ionized air gets excited to the point of phosphorescence faster.

[@salparadise1220]

Maybe, but in this case, no. As the earth's magnetic field weakens, more energy gets through to the earth, which leads to instances where the earth's potential is higher than the atmosphere above it, so we get earth discharges. At least 10 so far this year and 3 within the last 2 days. This will only increase in the coming months and years. Something big is coming.

[@stargazer7644]

Your hair stands on end before a lightning stroke because of the large positive static charge that is attracted in the ground under the cloud.

[@stargazer7644]

Sal Paradise this has nothing to do with the earths magnetic field.

[@salparadise1220]

@@stargazer7644 Of course it does. The earth is an electromagnetic system, connected to the solar electromagnetic system, that's connected to the galactic electromagnetic system, and so on, up through as many levels as you like, and all the way down to the subatomic.

[@DavidLindes]

@@salparadise1220 I gotta say... your description _sounds_ a bit like pseudo-science (not saying it is, just that that's how it's coming across, at least for me). I mean, sure, electromagnetic systems influence each other, to varying degrees... and the sun's electromagnetic situation can certainly influence things closer to earth (the auroras are a well-known example of this)... however, you seem to be talking about something... well, you're making claims that sound grand, without being very specific. Could you post some links to discussions of what you're referring to?

[@joetaylor486]

Absolutely enthralling! Just watching that is a physics lesson and an art lesson at the same time.

[@LunDruid]

I've lived in the Bay Area for (next month) 33 years. While fairly small lightning storms used to be more or less annual, usually one or two during the fall season back when we actually had a fall season, they've been far rarer since about 2006. And even still, I've never seen anything like what we got in my entire life.

[@debh4996]

I saw it on Suspicious0bservers too. My mother loved chasing storms and using her old, huge, VHS camera on her shoulder to record lightning. One time it caught up with her. It sent her sailing for 20 feet, the camera kept recording and she was featured on Leeza Gibbons' show. (early 90's) I am very happy to see that you have the same passion as my mother. Good luck in all your photography endeavors. This was a beautiful capture!

[@michaelschoen9777]

I witnessed this event from my front porch in Fremont. Looking towards the south the display i saw from 5:20an too 6:15am Sunday morning was one of the most spectacular lighting events i have ever seen.

[@lohphat]

I used to live in SF and lightning is very rare since most storms are strataform from the Gulf of Alaska. Now I'm in NYC and almost all summer storms are thunderstorms. It's sooo cool to step outside and watch the lightning (from the street there's low risk as there are much taller buildings in the area for the lightning to find an easier path to ground).

[@Armuotas]

"..when I wake up in the middle of the night by a lightning storm my first call is just to try and take photographs of it." Ahh, right in the feels!

[@sjsharksfan]

One of the best lightning bolt catches I've seen, great shot Scott!

[@exoplanets]

Intriguing. It reminds me of how aliens descended in the movie 'War of the Worlds', but backwards.

[@alexandermartin1837]

I enjoyed your collab with Isaac Arthur :)

[@BeardyBaldyBob]

God that movie sucked! Such a disappointment. 🙁

[@c182SkylaneRG]

@@BeardyBaldyBob The original was SO much better!!

[@UltraNoobian]

Aliens be like, We outta here

[@hevi2866]

Just watched it yesterday again :)

[@richard--s]

Thanks for nerding out for nerds like us! ;-) Boy, that was a great lightning capture!

[@rexmann1984]

Hey, you got featured by Suspicious Observers. I suggest you check out why this is actually happening so much this year. It's today's morning clip.

[@harlankraft578]

Yeah Ben’s feature on S0 is how I found this video too. Great capture!!

[@elliotness422]

Me 4, and subbed Scott because :)

[@crunchmunch5282]

@@harlankraft578 Me 5............... That was pretty impressive, I love lightning.

[@paulajleal]

Ditto

[@matthewcooksey5411]

Eyes open! No fear!

[@Doxymeister]

Good morning, just popped over from SO channel to show you some love! Amazing footage, man, kudos!

[@shawnlondon953]

Popped in from SuspiciousObserver after seeing a couple frames of your capture. Glad I came to watch your whole vid! Keep up the Great work, will definitely be back again Scott !!! 👍🙂

[@larryscott3982]

We’ve all seen plenty of lightning vids and pics. But that’s a great capture!! One of the most busy bolts I think I’ve ever seen, and ground to air is an extra special capture - high speed no less.

[@olliea6052]

Anyone remember the big lightning storm in Ireland in the 80's? It started around 6pm and didn't stop till the early hours next morning. It practically didn't get dark the whole night and if my parents description is right, there was st elmos fire arcing off the barn and lightning arcing along the floods of water washing down our lane by the house. I was young then and scared to stick my head out from under the duvet. I wish i looked at some of it now. 😔

[@RIXRADvidz]

I was scared of TnL early too, but I was told it was God and the Saints Bowling, the flash was a Strike by God, the thunder and rumbling was the balls going down the alley, I then began to watch the storms, and still do. I sit on my patio in my rocker watching as the clouds cast flashes and booms.

[@sawspitfire422]

There was a pretty massive thunderstorm in England last week, nothing like that but it was constant lightning for an hour or so, you could see like it was dusk even though it was midnight and cloudy. It destroyed our internet router, evidently some static travelling up the cable. The whole house shook and my desk was rattled a few times by the closer strikes. Never seen anything like it in this country

[@Tstorms]

25th July 1985?

[@ryanwalker3453]

That was the best I've seen in years! Thank you!

[@jerry3790]

I’m almost jealous of where Scott Manley lives. Right next to San Francisco, rocket launches from Vandenberg, perfect California weather most of the time, lots of pretty scenery. Must be nice

[@3000gtwelder]

LOL! Kalifornistan, yeah it's awesome! Newsome Pelosi 2020 haha!

[@mwmacklin]

I stayed up all night watching that storm, too! So fantastic! :D

[@jeruvy]

Its great one of my favorite scientists refers me to watch another great space informant. Thanks for both S0 for the referral and thanks Scott for talking about this.

[@More-Space-In-Ear]

Fork lightning and volcanic lightning is the best, sheet lightning just illuminates everything....well captured Scott 👍🏼😊

[@sparkyprojects]

There's a few videos showing upward lightning, some even show the leader from the cloud, then several 'fingers' from the ground reaching up (like the animation, but more than one finger), then one of the fingers connect. There's also research groups that fire rockets into the sky with a thin wire attached so they can capture lightning, one of the groups even brought the wire down to a sand container to produce 'fulgarites' Search for 'rocket triggered lightning' as well as lightning research.

[@NoPulseForRussians]

The first lighting bolt with RCS thrusters. The fact that it hit a quick 90° angle to the right gives it away 😉👍🏻

[@michawaszak9531]

actually amazed by quality of video at this dark with such good frames per second using off market camera

[@schumannresonanceswithverte]

This is amazing. Dr. Ben, at Suuspicious observers has talked about incidences of ground to sky lightning are increasing. There's been more of those recorded this year than in any previous. Amazing catch.

[@Dinkum_Aussie]

My god! I used to take time exposure lighting pictures with my 35 mm Nikon this is a whole other level! Absolutely amazing! Thank you for sharing! From the ground up demonstrated beautifully Nikolai Tesla would be impressed ! 😎👍

[@andrewparkin4036]

Great slow Mo vid, gotta love nature's display of power and lighting is always great to watch. Thanks.

[@MalcolmCooks]

in soviet bay area, lightning strikes cloud!

[@sladewilson9741]

You win on so many levels.

[@NoName-zn1sb]

Peoples Republic of Berkeley

[@DeKrampus]

Thanks... Now, I have to use my phone and let my laptop dry out! That was funny, though. It sucks, that I had a mouth full of coffee when I read it.

[@scottmanley]

If the Bay Area is communist then why are several of the worlds largest corporations based here?

[@Balthorium]

Splendid Mendax I live here and many communists do too. They had a big march a few years ago to Alamo Square where they waved numerous red and USSR flags.

[@quitegonejim1125]

It's an electrical discharge from the Earth. You used to get a handful of these events every year, however with the Earth's magnetic field weakening these are becoming much more frequent. Right now it will only take a relatively minor solar flare to charge up mother Earth and cause an epic lightning sheet shooting across Earths L-bands, a bit like what happened on the Giza plateau millennia ago.

[@blueredbrick]

Lately I've been using my AM radio in my car to listen to my car internal electrical signals, still an ice car, and its fun. Also electrical fences for liveststock can be heard from a long way as well as traffic detection loops and more. When a few day back a fat thunderstorm was rolling over my city. Every channel was overwhelmed with signals from the thunderstorm. Not merely the actual discharge events are audible, but also the many many attempts (the failed streamers lets say) are very audible. I had much fun in my faraday cage on wheels, parked somewhere with the engine off. Best quility news broadcoasting in almost real time in a while if you ask me, It put a big grin on my face and yelled *H%#%%$5 when "my" near streamer won (I managed to spot a few a them with my eyes. Nerdy, nah not at all ;) :) Your ground to cloud gem is awesome. Im kinda glad it was not a ground to cloud one I observed, sitting in my flimsy faraday cage knowing that the energies involved apparently are magnitudes of order larger than the more common ones. Cool footage.

[@stargazer7644]

Tune to the top of the am radio band above where most stations are and it is quiet and you can listen to storms a thousand miles away.

[@rorydakin8048]

I had an old satellite TV dish with a 20-30 foot coil of COAX cable right next to my patio at a house I lived in, during storms I noticed I could hear a "buzzing" that would get louder and louder coming from the cable, eventually culminating in a "pop" or "click" sort of noise the exact moment a lightning bolt flash occurred. It ended up being a very good predictor of lightning strikes, to the point where I could notice buzzing and popping long before I could even see or hear any signs of a storm. Lightning has some unbelievable power, it's absolutely insane!

[@blueredbrick]

@@rorydakin8048 cool !

[@RDDPro]

Great capture Scott! Cool to see Ben pick this up also. Us great minds and all.

[@leejohnson3209]

My grandad told me lightning can sometimes go up from the ground when I was a kid. None of my mates believed me, even my teacher in school told me not to be so silly. Grandad was right...

[@AttilaTheHun333333]

your teacher was an idiot

[@TechyBen]

AFAIK every bolt has a second and third bolt to go with it. Along with the first one we know of, another one goes up from its source from the cloud to space, the third comes up from the ground. I guess the "rare" bit is the "leader" (as Scott calls it in the video) reaches the cloud, instead of just a few feet off the ground.

[@keco185]

I had a teacher in first grade that thought gravity was caused by the earth’s rotation

[@livethefuture2492]

lightning can go in any direction, wherever it finds the charge.

[@TheMisleadingWoodpecker]

70% of all teachers are not up to date on whatever they are trying to teach. 10% of them knows a whole lot more than they need to teach you. Now you can guess what the last 20% is all about

[@Veptis]

It's a lovely video, great trigger timing. My RX100 mk4 sadly isn't useable anymore as the rear screen basically died and couldn't be repaired. I loved the 1000fps feature but I didn't use it to shoot video anyways. My GX9 now doesn't any high fps feature due to a slow buffer. The charged air particles massively expand and heat up. The cool really fast afterwards and basically cause this giant column of low desire air. It falls against itself and causes the thunder sound.

[@keco185]

Lightning is the OG gradient descent calculator

[@duffman7674]

Too bad that charge levels in the atmosphere are not convex, so the lightning will only find local extrema.

[@jerryli821]

huh? OG gradient descent calculator?

[@keco185]

Jerry Li OG means original. Gradient descent is a method of finding a local minimum or maximum by looking at the “slope” or “gradient” of the values around you. For example, a ball does gradient descent as it rolls down a hill. It moves in the directly the hill is most quickly going down

[@jerryli821]

@@keco185 - never heard of it or is it just an imagined concept?

[@keco185]

Jerry Li it’s used a lot in machine learning to train neural nets

[@desertsongsworship459]

Thank You! So glad Suspicious Observers featured your vid, subscribed today...wonderful look and great info 👍🏻

[@luetner]

Scott, working 30 Yrs. for the best aircraft company in the world, providing paths for lightning current through an airplane was one of my assignments. It was a very interesting job. We had a world class lightning lab. My group once had a inquiry from an airline that asked , "what do we do different from the other airline company about lightning protection". Well it seems that things fall off when struck by lightning on the other guys airplanes. My company designed protection to protect from a 200K Amp strike. I have a book I used, I am now retired, I would like to share with you. luetner at hot-----

[@baxtercat5462]

luetner - do you work for Boeing by any chance? I’d love to learn more about his topic because I am currently studying for a 737 type.

[@luetner]

@@baxtercat5462 Yes it was Boeing, 30 + years, last 10 was in the bonding and grounding group. Making sure there was no sparks in a flammable zone, no shock hazard to people and lightning current could travel through the airplane without damage. It was a very interesting area to work in. I was a consultant to design engineers, finding ways to meet bond and grounding requirements with new design and material methods.We designed the lightning zone strike areas to take a 200K amp strike without damage on all of our models. Since I had been involved in many previous new model design I declined to get involved in the composite 787. All in all, working on airplanes one learns something new every day. My thirty years there, I became a better person, a better engineer and learned a lot. I had a great career at Boeing.

[@baxtercat5462]

luetner - That’s awesome man! That definitely does seem like a very challenging yet rewarding area of expertise- especially when working for the greatest aircraft company in the world! I have a relative who was involved with 787 production in the window development area. I find it amusing to think about all the different engineers who designed/developed stuff that seems insignificant at first glance, but it actually so important to safe flight operations when examined further. Thank you for your hard work and dedication that made Boeing the leader in new technology.

[@tommyfrerking]

I live in Minneapolis, MN and, even though there are buildings and light pollution, we still get plenty of very visible thunderstorms. I absolutely love watching the lightning during a storm!

[@hebl47]

1:02 that's some weird Travelling salesman algorhythm nature was running!

[@danieljensen2626]

It's fairly common that the electric field near the tip is way stronger than the background field between the cloud and ground, so lightning will get "lost" and basically just start doing a random walk. Loops are even fairly common (not closed loops of course, although they may look that way from some angles).

[@-danR]

Exactly what I was thinking. Maybe lightning could be exploited to solve some gnarly least-distance problems.

[@-danR]

@@danieljensen2626 I don't think it's genuinely random, in some Brownian sense, but sniffing out the least-potential-barrier and the greatest pre-ionized patch stepping stone directly in front of its nose

[@OCinneide]

@@-danR Seeing as the clouds could be modeled as a liquid with a changing magnetic field it is technically random but it's following the path of least resistance through the clouds.

[@Sharklops]

@Michael Bishop even nature swings both ways!

[@ChrisBrown-iu8ii]

Thanks for the great video Scott. If you are in Colorado along the front range during Spring, thunderstorms are almost a daily occurrence.

[@ahaveland]

I know how difficult and frustrating it can be to get a good shot of lightning, so well done on a great capture!

[@pdloder]

That's the best lighting footage I've ever seen. Nice work

[@pirobot668beta]

So the 'anchor' for the lightning was passing current for almost 2/3 second? Youch!

[@richard--s]

Yes, with varying intensities, but yes, there was quite some energy flow... (high currencies and high voltages over some amount of time...)

[@c222]

During thunderstorms I always like to pull out my AM radio to listen to the lightning. During this storm I could hear so many different types of strikes. Short pops of varying volume from the single bolts, sometimes a crackle when a swarm of bolts went off, then the most interesting was sometimes a longer creaking/crackling noise that would happen during long, large strikes, presumable caused by the leader slowly snaking around, constantly moving the charge that my radio was picking up as EM.

[@julese7790]

Hahah, very interesting Mr Manley. So I'm not the only one waking up to see lightning during storms :)

[@cquintana9326]

I believe all lightning is both ways; opposites attract. It is the return stroke that produces the visible flash. Great vid!!

[@a64738]

This is one of the best videos I have seen of lightning.

[@xVLADx45]

i love it that you say fly safe even when the topic of the video isn't about space

[@scottmanley]

I actually found a paper on the enhanced dangers Ground to cloud lightning poses to aircraft.

[@copixel37]

Scott: Im not a lighting expert Me: I've learned more about lightning than I'll ever need to know in 5 minutes

[@alasdairmunro1953]

A few years ago, I was staying on the island of Corfu, when during the evening a series of thunderstorms developed over Albania and headed towards us. I’d never seen anything quite like it, for more than an hour, the surroundings were lit up almost constantly by the lightning. I was monitoring it on a lightning information website; they were detecting 200+ strikes a minute! It was ethereal and like one of those cheesy horror films with the constant flickering. I wish I’d had a camera like yours to capture some of it! Great footage!👍🏼

[@user-mp3eq6ir5b]

I've had this happen 50 feet from my apartment while working in the Forest Service & it made the strangest whooshing sound as it crackled further up. The next day the Forested found that the tree had instantly been killed & dry rotted when he dropped it.

[@adamroodog1718]

I was in a thunderstorm in Melbourne Australia just a month or two ago and got that roaring whoosh from a fairly close strike. About a second maybe a touch more of the whooshing roar straight into a pearl of thunder. Ive never heard it before or even of it. I used to be a trawlerman in the southern ocean south of Tasmania and deliver yachts around Australia for rich people, im no stranger to lightning. I tried to search it but i didnt have the language to explain it to the search engine. Unsurprisingly the rushing, roaring, whooshy sound lightning makes before the thunderclap just seemed to confuse google. Best of luck to you and your dog

[@paulajleal]

When the Suspicious0bservers site started showing and explaining this process I asked if anyone had ever been close to a release like this. On the day I asked no one had. So I’m really pleased to hear these accounts... @paradigm respawn thanks

[@infinitytec]

Back in 2013 I was at the National Scout Jamboree in West Virginia. One night a massive lightning bolt lit up nearly half the sky. It was really impressive. So impressive that several hundred people cheered and clapped for the great show.

[@Lazy_Tim]

Pecos Hank Has some great shots as well. Underrated channel.

[@thirstfast1025]

I agree! Those sprites are amazing!

[@Lazy_Tim]

@@thirstfast1025 Blue jets, sprites and elves. Great stuff.

[@FEBC23]

I have never seen anything like this, it is just amazing and fun to learn science with you, Scott! Thank you!

[@mykulpierce]

It's pretty fun if you are not familiar that electron flow is typically from ground to cloud in the majority of lightning strikes. The human eye typically doesn't register the direction.

[@scottmanley]

It’s the reverse.

[@mykulpierce]

@@scottmanleyon a fair weather day the typical disparity between the atmosphere and the Earth is where the Earth is negatively charged and the atmosphere has up to +300, 000 kv. This disparity grows larger during thunderstorms as particles of water droplets build charge through triboelectric effect. The contact and separation A falling water creates a disparity of charge in pockets. Of course depending on which literature you read on atmospheric physics will get you a different answer since it's still a simple yet debated issue.

[@mr1frosty]

Amazing video! Ben Davidson on Suspicious Observers showed a small clip of it. Had to come here to see the whole thing.

[@Shaden0040]

All Lightning starts from the ground as a leader, which meets a charge coming down from the clouds to complete the circuit. This is only in the case of ground to cloud lightning and doesn't include cloud to cloud or cloud to space (sprites and jets)

[@Scaliad]

Lightning traveling from ground to cloud is rare, but in slow motion... that's incredible!

[@Aengus42]

I've got an app on my android phone called "Lightning Camera" that has a buffer & records when you hit the button just as you describe. It only gives you stills but if you can't afford a high speed camera it's way better than nothing. I've got quite a few shots now of lightning. Great fun!

[@Cirrus4000]

Thanks for the tip. I'll take a look at that. Always fascinated by lightning.

[@Aengus42]

@@Cirrus4000 I checked & it's called "Lightning Camera - Fast Burst Camera".

[@Cirrus4000]

@@Aengus42 Great, thanks :)

[@riche4you1975]

Love the power of storms always try and get out when one hits.

[@iOPTIMUSPRIME]

Rj sir❤

[@anthoneyking6572]

OMG Scott that was awesome I never knew lighting could go up thank you I'm stunned by that revelation and I love watching thunderstorms

[@Gandergray]

The entire NOAA presentation on the science of lightning can be viewed here: www.weather.gov/media/safety/Dr_Lightning_Guide-science.ppsx . According to the presentation, the most common cloud to ground lightning consists of (1) stepped leader (2) return stroke (3) dart leaders (4) return strokes. The visible flash is called a return stroke, and according to the presentation, occurs from the ground to the cloud. The illustration indicates cascading from the ground to the cloud.

[@stargazer7644]

That is the most common form of lightning, what they call negative strokes. But there are also rarer positive strokes that go the other way.

[@DrWhom]

@@stargazer7644 it's the positive strokes that make you come

[@trishleet2760]

Fabulous footage! Thank you for sharing (from Montana, USA, we too, have had more lightening storms than ordinary.)

[@randomnickify]

Wait...I was always taught that lightning always goes from bottom to top, we simply usually do not see a leading strike, just the later discharges.🤔 Edit: apparently it depends from terrain, terrain with lot of tall objects (like trees) tend to have more bottom to top lightnings.

[@davidf2281]

Me too. Another example of facts from the 80s and 90s that are facts no longer?

[@Boobashoob]

Me too. I’ve always been taught this.

[@RobFeldkamp]

@@Boobashoob Me too, Perhaps Scot is mistaken, in stead of 90's facts.

[@Lazy_Tim]

All depends on the charge of clouds v clouds v ground.

[@photonicpizza1466]

@@RobFeldkamp Don't conflate what your teacher has told you with fact, especially if it's high-school level and lower. Doubly true if you've received American education. Meteorology and the physics of lightning are active areas of research, not something that can be summed up in a couple of sentences. It's far from this simple.

[@angelmtv]

This is incredible! I slept through it! Love your explanation. Thank you for sharing.

[@kingmanspiritsandwine8291]

Suspicious0bservers brought me here.

[@susangray4409]

me too

[@cmonkey63]

I love this channel and have been here before, but today I got a tip-off from Suspicious Observers to have a look at this. Glad I did.

[@Dankalank]

Hi Scott! I think we're practically neighbors in relative terms :] We had a great view from here in Montara, just north of HMB. Thanks for sharing your footage :D

[@annoloki]

The charge is mostly just looking to get away from itself, which is why it has no idea of which way to actually go, until it starts getting closer to a positive charge, which will be formed as electrons move away from it in the clouds... in the reverse, you can often see these "positive streamers" that move up from the ground towards the negative stream, and the lightening meets where the negative stream finds the first positive stream that gets to it first. The sharp lightening conductors emit these positive streamers far more easily, which is how they draw lightening away from other potential discharge points... the ionised air has a much lower resistance to the current, so when the "circuit" is established, it will dump all it can through it.

[@MakeMeThinkAgain]

You make it sound like dating. :-|

[@SpaceWeatherNewsS0s]

I have been discussing these for months now - 10x the reports of upward lightning. Earth-discharge. Right now the magnetosphere is weakening and allowing in more cosmic rays to excite the global electric circuit. Much of this current accumulates in the ground. The sun is also slightly weaker now than in previous decades, and so the electrical environment of space (solar wind) is weaker... more in earth, less out there. Electricity will go to where its less crowded, just like air pressure.

[@scottmanley]

If you sum up the entire cosmic ray flux in interstellar space then it's about the same as that of all starlight excluding the sun, both are less than about 1 electron volt per cubic centimeter. The sun's energy density at the earth is about 30 mega electron volts per cubic centimeter. So I don't think your theory holds water, even if all the cosmic rays made it through the sun and earth's magnetic field it would only change the total energy flux by one part in 30million.

[@NG-VQ37VHR]

10x the reports of upward lightening, could just be because 10x more people have access to consumer grade slow motion cameras. Without the camera, you'd have no idea whether it began from the ground or the clouds.

[@nancyg3590]

I’m here because of Suspicious Observers. Thanks for this cool video.

[@scottmanley]

Bingo.

[@adrianparry6455]

I will go go with the evidence

[@Ralph2]

Great footage Scott. You once again taught me something, I thought all lightning went from ground to cloud and then main strike goes back to ground.

[@wdavis6814]

It was just Iroh redirecting lighting.

[@robertlinke2666]

okay, so i was not the only one thinking that, thank you

[@feha92]

Ah, I see, so the bridge he mentions is made of iroh. Which means that between the bridge and the cloud, there is nothing but angh (air, very forced pun :p)

[@LVSpeedweLL]

🌹hey good morning Scott, I’m visiting your channel by way of Suspicious 0bservers. Ben showed a portion of your amazing video this morning, (8/18) and the answer to your question. I wandered around your channel and have subscribed. Thank you 🌹

[@Absolute_Territory]

Doesn't MOST lightning have a return stroke up like this?

[@Absolute_Territory]

@HangGlideTube that was my understanding that most lightning strikes, if not all had the primary stoke going g-t-c

[@Absolute_Territory]

@HangGlideTube holy fuck that's terrifying

[@tinkeringinthailand8147]

I love watching lightning, plenty of storms here in Thailand at the mo as it is rainy season :)

[@andrewmetasov]

It's very possible that golden bridge "started" this, cause ground-to-cloud lightning usually starts from high man-made objects

[@LoanwordEggcorn]

Phenomenal photography! Thanks Scott!

[@oldmech619]

Lightning in the South Bay, is rare. A few years ago, we had one hit in the middle of the night. People call 911 thinking it was a plane crash. PS. I thought it was as well

[@babyUFO.]

hahahaha

[@soulsofpresentgracethompso5990]

Electrifying material Scott. Thank U!

[@MikeBourdages]

Earths weakening magnetic field allows earths core to charge up more easily from space particles, intern you get these earth discharges.

[@Michael_L_]

Very cool! Also see the late Tim Samaras' lightning videos at 100,000 FPS using his reconditioned cold-war nuclear test camera.

[@slartybarfastb3648]

Take a trip to Florida in July-August. You'll have hundreds of these shots within a couple of weeks. Probably not as good as this one most of the time. Florida has an over abundance of lightning occuring daily in summer months.

[@johnmiller8884]

I used to work in Yellowstone Park during summers. You could set your watch by the 4:30 thunderstorms. You could also pick out the Californians. While everyone else was heading for the visitor's center and gift shop, we would be the ones out on the board walk pointing at the pretty lightning.

[@MarkiusFox]

Central Florida specifically. The battling sea breezes in the afternoon are like clockwork.

[@johnsummers172]

@@MarkiusFox just passed

[@SyntheticFuture]

That's an insanely crisp recording. I have a few very nice photos (long exposure) of lightning but due to rolling shutter never got a good recording. This is beautiful.