Rare 'bolt from the blue' lightning strike caught on truck dash cam
This past Monday afternoon, the weather in the Lutz, Florida, area, located about 20 minutes north of Tampa, seemed to be that of a normal summer day in that neck of the Sunshine State.
Typical summertime thunderstorms had been making their way through the Tampa-Saint Petersburg area, but around 4 p.m., the closest storm in the vicinity to Lutz was about 3 miles away. All appeared to be tranquil as puffy white clouds floated across a splendid blue sky. But then something unexpected, and startling, happened. ...
As captured on dashcam video by Lutz resident Jonathan Moore, a large and booming bolt of lightning dropped out of the blue sky and struck a neighbor's palm tree across the street with such force that Moore's dashcam beeped, which it usually does to alert the driver of any type of movement. ...
Without a thunderstorm directly overhead, it might seem unusual for a lightning strike to occur amid what otherwise appeared to be rather calm weather, but meteorologists say there is a specific reason something like this can occur.
This type of lightning strike has a specific name and is referred to as a "bolt from the blue." In this particular case, the thunderstorm the bolt came from was about 3 miles away from Lutz's home, Jesse Ferrell, a meteorologist and senior weather editor for AccuWeather, said.
Ferrell analyzed lightning-strike data provided by Earth Networks on that particular storm to determine the precise location of the storm at the time of the bolt from the blue strike. Earth Networks tracks lightning strikes with a network of lightning sensors. There was no rain in the immediate area either, Ferrell explained, which added to the shock value of the bolt caught by Moore's dash cam. Rainfall was also about 3 miles away. ...
Although the storm was 3 miles to the west of Moore's home, his specific location was underneath what meteorologists refer to as a storm anvil, which can also produce lightning. ...
A bolt from the blue can also be "a cloud-to-ground strike which comes out of the side of the thunderstorm cloud," according to the National Severe Storms Laboratory. In this case, it's not possible to tell whether the bolt came from the storm anvil or out of the side of the thunderstorm cloud, Ferrell said. ...
According to NOAA, a bolt can strike as far as 15 miles away from the storm, which can be too far for thunder to be heard. ...
