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Ball Lightning in Ireland???

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  • 22-06-2011 10:59pm
    #1
    HellFireClub
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,912 ✭✭✭


    Just wondering have there ever been any recorded incidents of ball lightening in Ireland???

    It's a phenomena that has often caused me to wonder, it's extremely rare and I've never heard of any reported sightings of this in Ireland...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ioN-3UWYrY


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    #2
    hoody
    Registered Users Posts: 698 ✭✭✭hoody


    I remember years ago - as in back in the nineties - there was something similar to this seen by the crowd during the Galway races. Haven't found any online reference so far but I remember people talking about it.


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    #3
    gbee
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,388 ✭✭✭gbee


    Generally speaking, we get every weather phenomenon going and we have had devastating tSunami and earthquake activity too [no volcanic in many thousands of years].

    In history incidents have been misreported and Ireland is still a sparsely populated country and our pastimes, despite our outdoor lifestyles, were spent indoors.

    Our culture also suppressed reporting incidents for fear of drawing the little people or the bannshee down on our heads.

    Weather phenomenon such as ball lightening were interpreted as visions or demonic [depending on your parish priest] so there have been many myths making their way into the Irish weather folklore whereas in fact we do get all the weather going, just not as often and usually not as severe.


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    #4
    redsteveireland
    Registered Users Posts: 3,034 ✭✭✭redsteveireland


    hoody wrote: »
    I remember years ago - as in back in the nineties - there was something similar to this seen by the crowd during the Galway races. Haven't found any online reference so far but I remember people talking about it.


    I remember that too, my dad was at the races that day may have been '98 or '99.


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    #5
    Iancar29
    Registered Users Posts: 5,068 ✭✭✭Iancar29


    WOuld love to witness this! , would love to no the conditions that make it more favourable so to be able to watch out for it.. :)

    COndition 1 - Thunderstorm ... :rolleyes:


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    #6
    Danno
    Registered Users Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    Indeed, during the famous July 85 storm there was ball lightning, Johnstown in North Kilkenny was affected.


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    #7
    hotwhiskey
    Closed Accounts Posts: 592 ✭✭✭hotwhiskey


    Danno wrote: »
    Indeed, during the famous July 85 storm there was ball lightning, Johnstown in North Kilkenny was affected.

    Yes i saw ball lightning during that famous storm of '85, it happened right over our home it was a sight to behold that i will never forget and properly never see again.


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    #8
    maquiladora
    Registered Users Posts: 11,134 ✭✭✭✭maquiladora


    I haven't read this page yet, but a quick google search turned up....
    One of the most energetic ball lightning events ever reported occurred on August 6, 1868, in County Donegal, Ireland, and was witnessed by Michael Fitzgerald, who dutifully reported it to the Royal Society in London....

    http://www.zseltvay.com/first_installment_extreme_ball_lightning.htm


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    #9
    redsteveireland
    Registered Users Posts: 3,034 ✭✭✭redsteveireland


    maquiladora wrote: »
    I haven't read this page yet, but a quick google search turned up....


    H
    http://www.zseltvay.com/first_installment_extreme_ball_lightning.htm
    That report sounds crazy!


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    #10
    Chicken1
    Registered Users Posts: 239 ✭✭Chicken1


    I rember as a young fella watching a thunderstorm over Galway Bay with my Dad when a flash of lightning hit the water and bounced along the water it was a round shape lasted for a few seconds. That was a long time ago :D:D, I do remember the one when the Galway races was on I never saw so much forked lightning in my life during that storm, it set poles at the course on fire and RTE showed it as they were live at the time.


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    #11
    alanajane
    Registered Users Posts: 252 ✭✭alanajane


    Was trying to remember exact year but Danno got there first, 1985, I was on holidays at the time but when I got home I heard the stories of the ferocious storm, including ball lightening. A relative of mine apparently got his kids up in middle of night to watch it, cause it was such a rare sight. (I personally would have left them asleep!)


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    #12
    traecy1
    Registered Users Posts: 99 ✭✭traecy1


    redsteveireland wrote: »
    I remember that too, my dad was at the races that day may have been '98 or '99.
    Early August 1995. That summer was the warmest on record in many places.


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    #13
    darrenh
    Registered Users Posts: 685 ✭✭✭darrenh


    I remember the one in Galway. No one had a clue what was going on!


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    #14
    hoody
    Registered Users Posts: 698 ✭✭✭hoody


    I've attached a pdf of the front page of the Advertiser with the story about the fireball from August 1995... worth looking at for the price of the mobile phone alone!


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    #15
    Iancar29
    Registered Users Posts: 5,068 ✭✭✭Iancar29


    hoody wrote: »
    I've attached a pdf of the front page of the Advertiser with the story about the fireball from August 1995... worth looking at for the price of the mobile phone alone!

    FAIR PLAY!... how did u hav that???

    SO they thought it was St.Elmo's fire?... interesting :)

    I know a some1 that seen that while flying through a storm.


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    #16
    hoody
    Registered Users Posts: 698 ✭✭✭hoody


    Found it on the Galway Advertiser archive, they have every page of every issue for the past 40 years on there, some resource


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    #17
    loup
    Registered Users Posts: 422 ✭✭loup


    hotwhiskey wrote: »
    Yes i saw ball lightning during that famous storm of '85, it happened right over our home it was a sight to behold that i will never forget and properly never see again.

    Ball lightning also hit our family house in Dundrum that same year, our neighbour across the road reported it rolling across our roof. It hit our tv aerial and blew everything electrical in the house!


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    #18
    charlemont
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,725 ✭✭✭charlemont


    Danno wrote: »
    Indeed, during the famous July 85 storm there was ball lightning, Johnstown in North Kilkenny was affected.

    That was the best storm yet and I was only seven, Awesome storm, Once those hailstones started, We knew it was going to be good.


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    #19
    Iancar29
    Registered Users Posts: 5,068 ✭✭✭Iancar29


    I think we need to get in on this so!

    http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/lightning_chat.html :D


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    #20
    Totofan99
    Registered Users Posts: 1,597 ✭✭✭Totofan99


    Hey guys,

    I know this thread is kinda old but I just came across it now and I had to contribute!

    I remember ball lightning (well, I presume it was....) actually coming into our house in county Galway during a thunderstorm. This would have been in the late 90's I think.... It was very strange.... It was this yellow/orange glowing ball that gave off a hissing sound. It traveled down the hall in a perfectly straight line at the same height as the ceiling. It came into the kitchen, bounced off the gable wall, traveled back down the hall and then disappeared. Haven't seen anything like it since...


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    #21
    Helix
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,661 ✭✭✭✭Helix


    saw what i can only think was ball lightening about 10-12 years ago in balrothery

    seemed to snake along a telephone/electrical wire for about 3 seconds before disappearing


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    #22
    opinion guy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,001 ✭✭✭✭opinion guy


    Somebody posted a thread on AH about a 2 weeks ago describing what sounded like ball lightning.

    Let me see if I can find it......

    Here ya go:

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=73966909


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    #23
    dr24444
    Registered Users Posts: 4 ✭dr24444


    This one may seem a little fare fetched, but my brother would recount this story anytime a good conversation about lightning would develop. He passed away some years ago, and I have found that I now carried on the story for him.
    He would have be 10 years old when this happened, it was a summers day and as I recall a very hot humid day. My brother and a school pal had just come in from outside as it had began to rain, a summer shower as we would call it at the time. They had switched on the TV and were watching cartoons, the TV was a Ferguson and we had only bought it at Christmas. Suddenly there was a massive bang from the TV and loud rumbling of thunder. I was in the next room and ran in to see what had happened. My brother and his pal were in a state of shock. They sat there for a couple of second and then became animated, they told me that a white ball slightly smaller that a tennis ball had came through the celling following the coaxial aerial cable. It followed the outside of the cable slow enough that they could watch it. At one point the cable looped down toward the floor and it followed the loop and up along the cable again and into the back of the TV. It was just then they had heard the TV go bang. A eye witness said later that from were he was standing it look like the hole area around the house had lit up.


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    #24
    V_Moth
    Registered Users Posts: 1,423 ✭✭✭V_Moth


    Some info on ball lightning:

    http://www.torro.org.uk/site/ball_info.php


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    #25
    dr24444
    Registered Users Posts: 4 ✭dr24444


    Thanks for your reply, I will certainly give it a read. I also remember Sir Arthur C. Clarke covering the subject in a BBC series. I will try and find that program and post the link.


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    #26
    cocoshovel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,041 ✭✭✭cocoshovel


    Is it just me, or does ball lightening terrify anybody else?


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    #27
    Supercell
    Registered Users Posts: 15,342 ✭✭✭✭Supercell


    V_Moth wrote: »
    Some info on ball lightning:

    http://www.torro.org.uk/site/ball_info.php

    Utterly fascinating, but in some respects I wish i never read it - If i ever see ball lightening I'm running in the opposite direction and fast!
    https://www.loughlinstown.ie

    Have a weather station?, why not join the Ireland Weather Network - http://irelandweather.eu/



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    #28
    V_Moth
    Registered Users Posts: 1,423 ✭✭✭V_Moth


    Nah, I would be far too interested in documenting any sighting. Looking through YT, there is very little convincing footage. After sorting through all the OMG UFO, fakes and plasma balls, only these two are of interest:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9SrGOma5YE


    This one I am not 100% sure of, could be just a plane turning in the clouds, but it seems remarkable that it appears just before two fairly strong lightning bolts.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ioN-3UWYrY


    And then there is also this (skip to 0:55):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qevVKCIAdwM


    Also, I wonder if there is any relationship between ball lightning and some of the upper atmospheric lightning types (elves/sprites/blue jets).


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    #29
    ShiresV2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 190 ✭✭ShiresV2


    Supercell wrote: »
    If i ever see ball lightening I'm running in the opposite direction and fast!

    My now deceased aunt tried to get away from ball lightning once and it "followed" her briefly, we guess due to air currents.

    I saw what I assume is ball lightning in London about 9 years ago. I was in bed reading and it entered the room as an intense, localised ball of white light, about 2 metres away from me. It persisted no more than 10 seconds. I said to the girlfriend "do you see that?" to which she replied yes and then it was gone. Surreal experience.


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    #30
    Wine Goddess
    Registered Users Posts: 551 ✭✭✭Wine Goddess


    loup wrote: »
    Ball lightning also hit our family house in Dundrum that same year, our neighbour across the road reported it rolling across our roof. It hit our tv aerial and blew everything electrical in the house!

    Yes also the needle of the record player had a tiny flame on it AND it made a weird pattern on the carpet where it finally earthed itself!
    "Penthouse and Pavement" by Heaven 17 was the album.......great songs on that......


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    #31
    Coles
    Registered Users Posts: 1,020 ✭✭✭Coles


    An interesting report of ball lightning during a storm in Wicklow in June 1896.

    BallLightning-Wicklow-June1896_zps6c93a402.jpg


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