I have heard that central Florida is kind of the lightning capital of the U.S. People there are very familiar with, and wary of the “bolt from the blue” effect. But there is another type of lightning called “ball lightning.” It is so weird and unpredictable that some doubt that it really exists. I don’t think that science has completely explained it. Google “ball lightning.”
Here is brief overview:
[%-)]I’m a Conductor at the Monticello RR Museum & sleep in my own steel caboose when I’m working. Last weekend we had a pretty good T-storm pass through & I was a bit nervious. Enough so that I got out of the cupola & stood on the wood floor.
Rob
When I was a kid in the station at Irricana, AB I was walking from the kitchen to the dining roon and happened to look into the office just as a lightning strike must have hit the telgraph line north of town. For the briefest moment there was a large blue spark about the size of a beachball above the sounder. I couldn’t believe it happened, and for a while I didn’t tell my parents about it because I thought I had imagined it. But after I told them, my father said he had heard of that happening before but he himself had never seen it. It happeded so quick if had to turn your head you would miss it. Strangely, the telegraph only emitted one normal sounding click as it happened. From that point forward I always knew when lightning was hitting the line by the sound of the random clicks.
AgentKid
The speed of sound is approx. 660MPH at low altitudes and thick air, such as it is at sea level. At 40,000 feet, it’s 720MPH.
Just sayin’ - this 5 second rule may put the lightning closer than one mile.
Not quite. You have your numbers reversed. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/sound.html