Thanks Jimmy,
My first question having been that of lightning in a sky with no clouds, no storm - I've seen a solitary lightning bolt which wasn't that far from my location come from a cloudless sky. This one google isn't helping me with
The closest description I got was of heat lightning which still requires a building storm, however rainless to initiate from. Has anyone else seen this occur?
As for Q 2:
The information I have been reading is mostly off this "lightning glossary" I found on-line ~ it peaked my interest once a good debate began at my workplace on whether or not these things are possible. The only open minded responses came from myself and one other in a room of about 10 people at lunch, all others were heatedly negative responses with added ridicule
so I decided that regardless that I would do some reading and see what the experts have to say on the matter and found it astonishing that the topic is almost avoided. However this glossary I found made for interesting reading on what "is" known.
http://www.lightningeliminators.com/Lightning%20101/lightning_glossary.htmFrom what I've been reading - Thunder is a result of the descending lightning bolt making contact with the stepped leader that reaches up from the ground to meet the bolt, which then sends a return bolt of energy causing the shockwaves along the path the lightning travelled and these shockwaves are what we hear as Thunder and the sound and vibration from these shockwaves can travel around 10 km's in any direction.
It also says that a lightning bolt which is a 'negative cloud ground' strike can send many 'return strokes' causing considerable thunder to roll through the skies, though a 'positive cloud ground' strike rarely more than one 'return stroke'. So this made me wonder some more ~ as positive cloud ground strikes seem to be a minority in most storms I've watched on radar, that it may be possible for a cloud ground strike not to make contact with the stepped leader it's aiming for, which could result in a lack of a return stroke. This would result in
no shockwave being sent along the lightnings path, hence no sound from a shockwave which did not occur?
I agree that animals are more sensitive to storms than us, and especially many Dogs have an extreme sensitivity to what we term inaudible noise. My older Dog experienced his first storms as a pup while I was at work, they had been directly overhead and they affected him badly. After that I tried to spend a good amount of time around stormy weather with him - I'd eat and drink sharing some food as the storm began then lie down with him and pretend to sleep. He's 7 now and hasn't been worried about storms since he was about 18 months old. Now when there is a storm, he curls up on his bed and takes a nap
though just prior to storms both my Dogs follow me around closely enough you'd think they were glued to my leg
my younger dog who is now 5 always takes his lead from myself and my older dog so he's fine, but will only relax and nap when I sit down too
Mind you, when the storm is close so that thunder literally cracks overhead - he lifts his head then with his eyes bugged out
but now only becomes upset when the power and lights start to flicker. My answer to that - turn all power off and my lanterns and torch on and enjoy the ride
Cheers,
Kerry.
