Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Florida Keys Day 2, Part 5 | Video of lightning striking light posts along I-75


Click on the "HD" button in the right corner (so it's red) to watch in high definition.


Along Interstate 75 on Friday, after the storms' rain began to drench the rest area where I stopped to shoot the green sky, bolts of lightning came one after another. And the light posts around the rest stop appeared to be easy targets for Mother Nature.

Thinking that such frequent lightning was bound to strike one of the posts at some point, I pointed my video camera in their direction - from the safety of my car, of course. It took 10 minutes, but finally, one bolt struck a post across the highway. The lights, however, did not go out.

Then, I focused on the top of the light post closest to me. A minute later, it got hit and was knocked out of commission. Below, in the frame grab of the video, one of the three lights is still barely functional, as the others have been darkened by the strike. Watch the video, which includes the strike in slow motion, to see the lightning blow out all the lights.


GatorLightning
In this image capture from the video, a bolt of lightning wraps around the light posts, as two of the three lights have already been blown out.

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