What was this Lightning I just Saw?

Question

Ok I am in La Crosse Wisconsin and we are having a major thunderstorm right now that is moving extremely fast. I just saw the weirdest and most awesome lightning I have ever seen in my life but I don't know what the h**l it was. I don't have a photo but here is my description.

It landed about a 1/2 mile away.

It started off as a normal Bolt of lightning that was very large (probably because it was so close) , but a 1/2 a second after it hit , the lightning changed from a solid bolt to a bunch of glowing orbs or balls that were separated from each other going upwards. And it didn't disappear right away, it hung in the air for like 2 seconds.

It was absolutely awesome, but also weird.

So what kind of lightning was this? Is it normal?

Answer 1

What you just saw was a rare phenomenon called Ball Lightning. Sometimes in rare cases, lightning can be overcharged and produce that affect. As for being normal, no this is not normal, but unusual. You don't want to be close to that when it decides to vanish, you will have loss of hearing for awhile, since the sound will be very loud. The last time I've seen this type of lightning was when we lived in Berkley, California, back in the 1950s. It was a very stormy night.

Answer 2

lighting is caused from warm air converging with cold air. it probably did that because when the lighting struck it spun the warm and cold air together and created a ball of lighting.

Answer 3

You just saw ball lightning!!!

ball lightning: A randomly occurring bright ball of light observed floating or moving through the atmosphere close to the ground.

It kinda looks like fireballs in the sky!

Answer 4

sounds like static electricity to me. that is cool though whatever it was. wish I coud see that. I loooove thunderstorms.

Answer 5

That really doesn't seem like lightning. More like some kind of extraterrestrial aircraft.

Answer 6

What likely happened is that once the charge within the bolt was almost spent, the bolt channel basically began to break up in pieces, with some remaining charge in the various remaining pieces of the original channel.  These glowed a little longer and moved up the old channel before dissipating as well.  I have seen this a few times, but it is rare.