Moneybox's videos

[Bush]

No where to run.
No where to hide.
If you could find a bridge to get under but `you`d need a spare set of Nappies.

 

[Manpa]

Brings this to mind
https://youtu.be/lS-af9Q-zvQ

 

[Moneybox]

Brings this to mind
https://youtu.be/lS-af9Q-zvQ

Showing your age there Manpa I haven't heard that for a very long time.

 

[Евгений]

.This is an obscene expression in Russian, degenerating surprise, shock. :awful:

 

[Feral]

Awesome light show. I :heart: :heart: :heart: thunderstorms

 

[Dave79]

That would have been quite a heart starter/code brown moment. I love a thunderstorm after a hot spell.....but from a distance. Great video and well done getting through it safely.

 

[Moneybox]

The options in YouTube have changed and it stuffed me up a bit. I ended up with NO COMMENTS set and I like to see what people have to say. If you not loaded a YouTube video for a while it's a bit confusing to start with. Anyway it's all sorted now.

 

[Moneybox]

FIRSTLY, for those of you who tried to comment on the 'Moneybox Storming Across WA' video above..... we found out the comments were inadvertently turned off BUT they are now on so you can share your thoughts if you'd like. We'd love to hear what you think of nature's spectacular performance.

SECONDLY, have you ever tried to photograph a lightning strike? Not easy.... it's gone before you can press the finger on the trigger. I should know.... I spent ages last night trying just that. So here are some screenshots of lightning bolts from our movies in order they appear.

You get the streak on the dark sky first followed by the purple flash. It finishes with bright white light that leaves spots on your eyes. And it's all over in less than a second. The power is just awesome and demanding of respect. Isn't nature amazing?

 

[Ded Driver]

Zeus was after your moneybox :lol:
lucky that strike didn't hit your van ... you could have been stuck out there all night!
reminds me of a trip a mate did with me a few years ago now, 1400km up to Newman for a New Years Eve party. We drove thru the night & went in under a big storm just north of Bindoon that lasted all night, with lightening going off all around us. My mate is a semi-pro photographer but he didn't intend to get out of the car for any pics

 

[Moneybox]

Zeus was after your moneybox :lol:
lucky that strike didn't hit your van ... you could have been stuck out there all night!
reminds me of a trip a mate did with me a few years ago now, 1400km up to Newman for a New Years Eve party. We drove thru the night & went in under a big storm just north of Bindoon that lasted all night, with lightening going off all around us. My mate is a semi-pro photographer but he didn't intend to get out of the car for any pics

Poor old Zeus. If he was after our moneybox he certainly STRUCK OUT!! layful: O And I reckon if that strike had hit our bus we wouldn't be around to talk about it all.

 

[madtuna]

There's always a warning before you get hit by lightning...

1. The sky goes a weird purple
2. All your body hair stands on end
3. Complete silence no matter how noisey it actually is.

From step 1 to when the lightning bolt hits you which immediately follows step 3 is usually under a second....so my advise would be to take immediate steps to get the hell away from where you are standing. :Y:

 

[Flowerpot]

Brilliant and terrifying at the same time. oop:
Awesome video and photos Phil & Sandra, very glad you got thru to safety. :Y:

 

[Bush]

They say Lightning doesn`t Strike in the Same Place Twice.
Stay in the same spot it just stuck could be your best bet.

 

[Bush]

~ Struck ~``My English`` Sorry that`s Racist ~ Grammar ~ :N:

 

[Syndyne]

SECONDLY, have you ever tried to photograph a lightning strike?

Yep! Been doing it professionally for over fifteen years now.

Always love seeing the footage -not to mention those top reactions! :lol:

We had a similar storm setup here in the Ridge late last Thursday afternoon. A strong outflow dominant storm kicked up an almost identical dust front prior to the onset. It almost blacked the town out completely before the maelstrom hit. The recent storms over the last few weeks with the trough system have been the most severe and the most lightning I've seen here in almost a decade. We've had 120mm in total from them which has been the real bonus. Seems so strange to hear lawn mowers going!

Stay safe out there!
Cheers,
Shauno.

 

[Syndyne]

There's always a warning before you get hit by lightning...

1. The sky goes a weird purple
2. All your body hair stands on end
3. Complete silence no matter how noisey it actually is.

From step 1 to when the lightning bolt hits you which immediately follows step 3 is usually under a second....so my advise would be to take immediate steps to get the hell away from where you are standing. :Y:

Not quite correct MT. Let me shine a little light (pardon the pun layful: ) on a subject I know very well.

The sky/storm will never change colour to warn of lightning. Lightning works off ice and hail charging the upper atmospheric parts of the storm during thermal convective lifting inside the main core body, so unless the sun is directly effecting the upper levels above the Troposphere, or is simply setting behind the cell causing colour diffraction of the surrounding cloud layers then this is simply not true.

While hair standing on end is a somewhat commonplace experience, personally I can not recall a single time that I've had that effect prior to a very close strike. However, when it does happen it is caused by connective positive streamers leaving your body (along with any tall object in the vicinity of the field path) trying to act as a conduit. If you can't seek shelter immediately then you should quickly crouch and sit down on the balls of your feet if you experience that happening, mostly to minimise ground contact and lessen any risk. Also work off the assumption that if you're within 30-40k's of the active storm/cell or it is already raining then a higher risk is definitely present. An easy way to tell the distance (particularly if the country is rather flat) is that thunder can be just noticeable around the 40 kilometre mark. That's always been my first warning or alert if you will -depending on steering winds.

There's generally no warning of an impending strike whatsoever. I've been out in a few hundred severe active storms over the decades and had more close strikes (within 100mtrs) than I care to recall -mostly while out photographing them on the open exposed ridges around town. Best practice to just be aware that the risk is always there if you're caught in severe weather.

As a side note, it can be interesting that you can actually see positive streamers emitting from the ground and objects like fences at times just with your eyes, particularly during a severely active dryer, lower precipitation storm. I have seen these every now and again (and caught them on film). They are usually 1 or 2 metres in length and in similar circumstances to lightning will either be a bright pink or blueish colour depending on either a slightly higher Nitrogen or Hydrogen content of the atmosphere surrounding the storm.

Hope that clears a little bit of that up. :Y:

Cheers,
Shauno.

 

[Gem in I]

I can vouch for no. 2 and 3 in MT's post from personnel experience. I am no professional on the matter, just lucky to get out of a bad situation in time.

My job was to wrap the timber framework of a house with foil wrap before they brick. We used steel tackers that were slapped against the framework securing staples to hold the wrap to the frame. (holding the roll in left hand and tacker in right continuing around the house at constant pace).

Anyway long story short house was 2 storey with huge gables meaning the steel scaffolding was four levels high.
Soooo close to finishing at the top but the hairs on my arms started standing up and when I yelled to my co-worker to get off the scaff it sounded like, well yelling inside a bubble if that makes any sense lol.

There was a small storm coming we knew that which is why we were trying to get finished so fast and I estimated it to be a kilometre or so but after the hair and the lack of sound, cut the roll and over the side of the scaff it went as well as my tacker and think we bolted down the stairs before the tacker even hit the ground lol.

Still can't win lotto though.

 

[Bush]

Never the Same Place Twice.,????
Well that Theory went out the door.

Encyclopdia Britannica
Lightning never strikes the same place twice is a common phrase youve probably heard before, often used to reassure someone that whatever bad thing has happened, it wont happen again. It can even be used when something good happens, such as winning the lottery, but the underlying truth remains. What are the odds that something extremely unlikely, such as a lightning strike, will happen more than once? After all, a thunderstorm travels across an area. So after lightning strikes one place, its probably safe from another strike. In reality, lightning can and will strike the same place twice, whether it be during the same storm or even centuries later.

Then again it could be the Person your next to.
Roy Sullivan
Struck 8 Times.
He Probably took too much Mineral Supplement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Sullivan

Then there`s these suckers:Lightning Balls.

And if that doesn`t get you.
A 256 gram piece of hail might which is around 100 grams heavier than a cricket ball.

Phone battery went flat just when you needed it.
Nothing was left on the trees .
The road looked like something out of Fantasy Land.
Totally green path covered in leaves.
If you were caught out walking your dog you would never have come home.

 

[Syndyne]

I can vouch for no. 2 and 3 in MT's post from personnel experience. I am no professional on the matter, just lucky to get out of a bad situation in time.

My job was to wrap the timber framework of a house with foil wrap before they brick. We used steel tackers that were slapped against the framework securing staples to hold the wrap to the frame. (holding the roll in left hand and tacker in right continuing around the house at constant pace).

Anyway long story short house was 2 storey with huge gables meaning the steel scaffolding was four levels high.
Soooo close to finishing at the top but the hairs on my arms started standing up and when I yelled to my co-worker to get off the scaff it sounded like, well yelling inside a bubble if that makes any sense lol.

There was a small storm coming we knew that which is why we were trying to get finished so fast and I estimated it to be a kilometre or so but after the hair and the lack of sound, cut the roll and over the side of the scaff it went as well as my tacker and think we bolted down the stairs before the tacker even hit the ground lol.

Still can't win lotto though.

Hi Gem,

No doubt a timely escape if it hit close by, luckily for you blokes! Still would've grabbed a lotto ticket. Haha!

What you experienced there was the atmospheric charging (strong static build-up) taking place and I would assume highly amplified by all the metal structures around you. Not really a direct effect as this can happen even outside the storms reach. In this case just a possible precursor/forewarning of a bolt potentially hitting within a few hundred metres as the storm was almost on top of you. I would always expect this type of thing with a very close active storm cell. :Y:

A storms atmospheric effects and influences can be pretty strange on occasion. There were a couple definite standouts even for me and I'm so used to them these days. One where I had opened an umbrella to block the wind while photographing a storm around 80k's away (sitting just on the QLD border north of us) with not even the slightest chance of being hit and there were blue plasma bolts around an inch long emanating from the tips of the thin metal arms, and every now and again a Jacob's Ladder effect would run across the nylon surface between the arms. The other two times were both crackling power lines that were discharging overhead. That was very cool to witness and very loud at times! Both of those occasions the storms were around 10-20k's distant and moving towards me. The atmosphere was also very hot (still in the high 30's well after dark), very windy and the lightning was furious in both! Good times.

When active cells get going they can pull a charge up to 17TeV +/- prior to discharge (depending on the localised atmospheric influences like heat, dust, moisture etc.). There can and will certainly be a few interesting occurrences at play at those energy levels that will be quite strange or fascinating to some, but all par for the course.

Cheers,
Shauno.

 

[sand surfer]

I can vouch for 2 and 3 also,i was on a open top tractor working a block prior to planting ,at one end of the block there was overhead high voltage power lines that you travelled under while turning at the end of the block,i could hear the thunder but because of the trees you could not see how faraway the storm was in the distance, but took no notice just wanted to finish the block before the storm got here,while turning under the power lines all my hair stood up and it felt like a warm breeze passed over me, so that was it it was full throttle out of here',when i got back to the shed a work mate had a chuckle about my hair still standing up and said i was a very lucky bloke, the lightning strike hit the pole one before me and he said there was a blue ball about the size of 3 basketballs travelled along the wire above me frying everything it touched, he said the wire hit the ground only seconds after i had move out from under it, i had no idea i was eyes forward and full noise out of there