June 12, 1998 transcript # 237-5
Subject(s): Ball Lightning
Title: BALL LIGHTNING ANSWER
Listener Stories about Ball LightiningHi, I’m Dave Thurlow. Yesterday on The Weather Notebook, we had a question from writer Jay Allison, asking about something he saw on an airplane:
“I happened to glance down the aisle in front of me and noticed, hallucinegenically, that a ball of sparkling light was forming up there. “Odd,” I thought, and that was about all I had time to think because the fiery orb was starting to roll bowling ball fashion about a foot above the floor, straight down the aisle toward our seats at the back. Fast, weird, nasty. And then, the fireball reached us, and exploded in our faces. Bam!”
It exploded but it did not hurt anyone. So, Jay’s question was, “What the heck was it?” and we promised to explain it today. Well, it’s something called Ball Lightning and I’ll bet that you or someone that you heard about or someone you know has had a similar type of experience. Because Ball Lightning is relatively common it’s just kind of mysterious. I’ve never seen Ball Lightning, I miss all the fun, just a meteorologist, but I can describe it based on eyewitness accounts like Jay’s. Ball Lightning is almost always seen during a thunderstorm in the form of some kind of glowing, sparkling, sphere of yellow or even blue light. It can last for a few seconds or a few minutes. It’s as small as a baseball or as big as a car. Science can describe Ball Lightning but can’t really explain it. It appears that Ball Lightning is a collection of electrons and ions forming a hot ball of gas called plasma which is electrically neutral so it’s bark is worse than it’s bite.
So, anyway we have all kinds of speculations about Ball Lightning at our web page which is www.mountwashington.org/notebook. As well, we have there some stories from listeners that prove Ball Lightning to be more than an hallucination. The Mount Washington Observatory produces our show; we are funded by the National Science Foundation with underwriting support from Subaru, the beauty of all-wheel drive.
Ball Lightning Stories From Listeners
"I remember my mother telling the story of lightning coming across thefloor of their bedroom on Saturday, when she was ironing, in the 1950's. I was only a baby, and on the bed. She was standing by the ironing board. My father was an electrician. He had a tall antenna tower, between the buildings, since we lived in a valley, and he needed good reception for the TV showroom. The lightning apparently came down the tower, jumped 5', across to the bedroom window, partially opened, with an old Verando fan in the window. The electric window fan was not damaged. But my mother clearly described the "ball" or "balls" of lightning that came through the fan and went across the floor. There was no damage to the tower, the house, or the floor - or to the two of us in the room. It was a strange and frightening experience for her, and not experienced before or after that time."
John Hendricks - Uhrichsville, OH
"I saw ball lightning on a stormy summer's night around 58 years ago. Several of us were vacationing at our grandfather's cabin, which is still situated on a wooded hillside (but away from the woods) in Burns Township near Holmen, WI. We were sitting at the table playing cards when suddenly what looked like a ball of fire went rolling past the window - this wouldn't have been more than 8 feet off the ground. As I recall, the lightning was about 2 feet in diameter, and seemed to 'know' where it was going. We were more amazed than scared. Because some of the outside shutters were down, we figured it went around the cabin and came back again, because there were more than one roll-by. Over the years, when I told people this story they looked at me askance. Thus it has been a long time since I last related it."
Eleanor Sullivan - La Crosse, WI
"I was a kid, about 7 or 8, living outside of Baltimore, MD (Ellicott City to be exact!) in the middle 50's. As you are aware, the summers there are very hot and humid and we experienced numerous thunderstorms! We lived in a one-story house with a hallway, which joined with the kitchen and living room, making it possible to walk around in a circle in the middle of the house. We had a big fan in the attic opening in the ceiling of the hallway, near the bathroom, which happened to be on during one of those thunderstorms. I remember lightning hitting the fan and then a ball of fire chased my Dad around the hallway (he was going to turn off the fan, due to the storm) and suddenly it just disappeared! It happened very fast, was REALLY scary, but did absolutely no damage to the house, except for maybe killing the fan! This caused a lot of excitement, and we always made sure that all fans and other electrical appliances were off during T'storms after that! I will never forget that lightning experience, and have yet nor want to experience it again!"
Ellen Bosworth - Charlotte, VT
"Back in the early 50's when I was in my early teens I saw what I believe is referred to as 'ball lightning.' At any rate, the following is a description of the phenomenon I observed. We were living in the outskirts of Atlanta in DeKalb Co., GA. We were living in a stone terrace structure, which would later become the basement to our house. There were a number of very tall poplar and sweet gum trees (50-100 ft. tall) around the structure. We had a phone connected to a jack mounted on one of the interior sheet rock walls. During an electrical storm I saw what appeared to be a ball (4-5" dia.) of very bright light originate in the area of the phone jack and slowly roll across the asphalt tile floor (about 15 ft. in 1-2 seconds) toward a kitchen sink and disappear. There were no water pipes or electrical conduit under the floor traversed by the phenomena. There were no signs of damage or burns on the wall, floor or on the phone jack after the light dissipated. The phone ringer sounded briefly when the event occurred. The phone was operable following the storm. I do not recall if there were any odors associated with the event. If there were, it was not sufficiently noticeable for me to remember. At the time I observed this phenomenon I had not heard of 'ball lightning.' I heard of 'ball lightning' when I was in college several years later an concluded that must have been what I had observed."
Jeff Schall
"I believe I may have seen ball lightning when I was a child. We lived in Benson, Arizona and I was only 6 years old. I'm not sure if what I saw was ball lightning, but I remember it being really strange. My mother, a tornado and severe thunderstorm veteran from the Midwest, recalls that she has never seen anything like it. It was a hot summer afternoon and a thunderstorm had moved into the area. We were in our small living room with the north and east facing windows open for a breeze. I was lying on the floor looking up at the ceiling and my mother was standing in the doorway when what seemed to be a blast of lightning came barreling through the northern window. It was not a bolt, more like a ball. It hit the couch and bounced up the wall before disappearing. It missed me by a few inches. The couch sustained a black burn mark about the size of softball, but the wall showed no traces of burn."
Lara Compton - Potsdam, NY
"I was living with my parents in Roswell, NM. I had a girlfriend over, sitting on the living room couch. I was in the kitchen standing at the stove with tongs in hand, frying tortilla chips. The next thing I knew, a fuzzy yellow-orange eight-inch in diameter glowing ball came from my right, floated over in front of me, and disappeared. It just blinked off! At that moment, we heard a large clap of thunder. My friend ran in and asked if I was okay. She had seen the ball come out of the wall by the dining room table, float into the kitchen, and disappear. We smelled fire, and had the fire department come out. They said the lightning hit the tree in the back yard, came through a wire attached to the house, down the wall through wiring, knocked off the outlet cover (it flew five feet across the room), across the dining room, and into the stove, or me. My right ear was deaf and arm was numb, for a little while. I guess it could've grounded out on me or the tongs. Anyway, I guess I was lucky."
Renee Cole - Odessa, TX
"In the late 60's, I was flying on a military flight from Travis AFB (CA) to Hickam Field (Hawaii). After takeoff, we were bounced around by a storm pretty good; but the plane was one of those old reliables (a DC-3 or the like). We lost cabin lights a few times for a few seconds. The thunder was rumbling and the lightning visible. This went on for ten or fifteen minutes, then the plane was hit by lightning. Lights came in all the windows at once and all the cabin lights went out for good. There used to be a door behind the cockpit of planes. From somewhere near this door, a bright basketball-size flame moved from the front of the plane to the rear at a fast walk pace. There was strong smell of short-circuited machinery. When the flame reached the back door, it made a loud bang (like a metal door being slammed shut) and darkness returned for the rest of the flight. We made an emergency landing at Oakland with no problem. I did manage a peek at the back door and there was no noticeable damage of any sort. We told the airport people what we saw. They said the plane was hit by lightning and the instruments shorted out and that there was nothing in the cabin. We were put on another plane, sent off, and no one I knew could explain the ball of fire that I saw. A few years ago, a cable TV show on 'Science's Biggest Mysteries' discussed ball lightning. Instantly, I saw that they were talking about what I had seen twenty years previously."
Peter Larmour - Port Washington, NY
"When I was about 10 years old in 1934, we were sitting on our large front porch in Adams, MA during a bad thunderstorm when a ball of lightning struck our cement sidewalk and bounced over our front steps and ended up near our front door. No one was hurt and nothing was damaged. The ball just seemed to disappear."
Owen McAndrews - Savoy, MA
"You asked if anyone had ever experience a 'ball of lightning.' Yes, a friend, did recently. She said that she was sitting on a couch when this 'ball of lightning came through one window, rolled across the floor and went out the window on the other side of the room.' She was frightened, but unharmed. The storm that raged did do much tree damage around her trailer."
Joyce Warner - Saranac Lake, NY