Thursday, August 07, 2008

Zap! (update)

About 8PM last evening an intense thunderstorm was on us, and lightning zapped a tree just across from the house. It was one stunning explosion.


Photo no. 1 just gives you an idea of how far it was from the house.

Today I was interested in getting a close-up of how nature operates. You can see in the third photo, the way the bolt split the bark in a spiral down the trunk.



Your Intrepid Photographer had to beat her way into the underbrush to see its down-to-the-ground progression (photo 4)

There's about 4 feet of undamaged bark, then the splitting picks up again, so it must have charged through the tree. It remains to be seen whether the tree will make it!

Downyflake, the anxiety-ridden cat, is traumatized for life, though.

















UPDATE:

The drama continues! In last night's much milder rainstorm, the top above the strike snapped off.




2 comments:

Sherwood Harrington said...

Poor Downeyflake!

And poor tree. The spiral path of the current's flash is fascinating, a flourish of lethality.

ronnie said...

Yikes! Scarey!

Our cats get so distressed just by thunder. I can't imagine how they'd react to an actual lightening strike. They'd probably still be under the bed...