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Picture of the month June 2009 

 

 

Picture taken at Steenokkerzeel on May 26 2009.

 

One of the most powerful features of mother nature are undoubted electrical discharges, more specific lightning strikes. Some types occur like intra-cloud, cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground strokes. In latter case, negative or positive discharges to the earth's surface or objects on it are possible. The strokes with a positive discharge are considered to be quite dangerous as not seldom these can initiate a fire or in rare cases even the death of living creatures, the human being not escaping from it. When a thunderstorm arrives, best thing to do is to seek shelter like a house or car and close all the doors, if not possible stick as low as possible on the ground. Certainly some things not to do are: have a swim, remain standing on the  top of a hill, or seek shelter under a tree (as it may fall on top of you when hit by strike). Also inside you're home, taking a bath during a thunderstorm is not a good idea as water is a very good conductor of electricity.

But seen from a safe distance, lightning during a thunderstorm is always a pleasure for the eye.

The picture was taken on the aft side of a severe thunderstorm with on its front side downburst winds up to 58 knots. It shows a remarkable long cloud-to-ground strike which its impact at 20 km from the spot where this photograph was made.        

More pictures of lightning via this link



List of pictures of the month