What is ball lightning? Here’s the story behind the weird weather phenomenon

For many years, I served as a naval aircrewman on a P-3 Orion. The P-3 is a large four-engine turboprop maritime patrol aircraft that typically locates and tracks submarines and ships over vast expansions of the world’s oceans.

A P-3 aircraft is easily distinguished by its distinctive tail stinger or “MAD Boom” used for magnetic anomaly detection.

A fellow P-3 aircrewman told me a story about a lightning bolt that struck the aircraft’s tail while over the Atlantic Ocean.

Immediately afterward, the crew watched a yellow luminous, rotating sphere with a fuzzy surface about the size of a volleyball bounce inside the plane along the isle as it traveled toward the nose and cockpit of the Orion.

As the sphere bounced along the deck, little balls of light shot from it as it passed the different aircrew stations — observer, ordinance, acoustic and radar operators.

After the luminous globe passed the navigator and tactical officers’ seats, and just before it entered the flight station, it exited through the floor without causing any damage.

This phenomenon was probably ball lightning, and it has been well-documented and described by people over thousands of years. In fact, it has been seen by about 5% of the population.

Overall, ball lighting occurs during thunderstorms and typically appears simultaneously with a cloud-to-ground lightning strike. Its size can range from less than 1 inch to more than 3 feet in diameter.

Ball lightning usually moves parallel to the earth but can also travel vertically or remain nearly still.

The spheres range in color, but yellow is the most observed. They can last from one second to over a minute and disappear either silently or with an explosion.

Up till this day, no one knows for sure what ball or globe lighting is.

In fact, some scientists believed it was hallucinations caused by the strong magnetic fields during lightning bolt discharge to ground. However, recent photos of this mysterious phenomenon disprove this hypothesis.

Scientists continue to struggle to explain these puzzling plasma balls.

In a March 2019 article in National Geographic, Christina Nunez wrote, “In 2006 researchers at Israel’s University of Tel Aviv created a laboratory version of ball lightning using a microwave beam. In 2018 quantum physicists demonstrated a synthetic, knotted magnetic field that mirrors and possibly helps explain ball lightning.”

Other phenomena associated with thunderstorms can be explained.

For example, St. Elmo’s fire. This is corona discharge that often occurs before a lightning storm strikes when masts of ships, the wingtips, antennae, Pitot tubes, and edges of propellers on aircraft are illuminated by a haunting bluish-white halo, with brush-like sparks of electricity discharging into the night sky.

However, other phenomena associated with thunderstorms cannot be explained — such as red sprites, faint but vast flashes that only last for a few thousandths of a second. They extend into the thermosphere, which starts at approximately 56 miles above our planet and extends to the edge of the atmosphere.

Climate change talk

I will be giving a presentation about climate change, and what it means for our local weather at the Santa Maria Public Library, 421 S McClelland St. in Santa Maria on Friday, Jan. 24, from 3 to 4 p.m. with time for questions afterwards.

All are welcome, including families.

This talk is sponsored by the Santa Maria branch of the American Association of University Women.

This story was originally published January 12, 2020 at 5:10 AM.