The Weather Notebook: Fulgurite

Fulgurite
Listen in RealAudio
Email your weather question

Hi. This is Bryan Yeaton for Weather Notebook, and we have an unusual word for you today; the word is "fulgurite." A fulgurite is formed when lightning discharges between a cloud and the ground. The temperature from electrical resistance can get so high, that it actually melts the sand, which later hardens into fragile tubes, and these are the fulgurites.


Photo: Greg Shirah, SVS

The word is derived from the Latin "fulgur," which means, not surprisingly, "lightning."

One of the world's leading experts in lightning research, Dr. Martin Uman of the University of Florida writes in his book All About Lightning that many medaevil church bells were inscribed with the words "fulgura frango." That means "I break the lightning." It was thought that the ringing of church bells could actually disrupt the channel that lightning would take. Unfortunately, in a thirty-three year span, over a hundred bell-ringers lost their lives disproving this theory. But that's the scientific method.

Dr. Uman made the news again recently when his team uncovered the longest fulgurite ever found: three branches totalling over thirty-eight feet! Professor Uman's laboratory sits in the middle of one of the world's "lightning factories," the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Uman says that fulgurites are probably more plentiful than most folks think, but you have to know where-- and how-- to look. Uman's team, in uncovering the record fulgurite, used excavation techniques developed by paleantologists for removing dinosaur fossils.

He suggests that you start right on your local beach. But just make sure the lightning has stopped.

The Weather Notebook is supported in part by Subaru. If you have comments or questions, email us at comments@weathernotebook.org. Thanks today to assistant producer, Doug Sanborn.