Raiden wins.

[prog]

This crazy-violent fast storm that just blew over (and out of) Boston had positive lightning in it! I didn't know about the existence of this phenomenon until now.

I saw two strange, long-lived, brilliantly purple lightning bolts and asked weather-nerd kyroraz what they were, and he told me. "It's really bad stuff", he added. "Do not get hit by it."

Comments

Footnotes

[kyroraz.livejournal.com]

I'm actually a bit jealous that you got to see it. I haven't yet in all my time doing thunderstorm tracking and the occasional chasing. I haven't done that in a while.

Positive lightning is rare. 2% of lightning strikes is positive, and, it comes from the anvils/tops of the clouds. It's hot, nasty, and there is no chance to survive. Make your time, if you're hit.

But I think that the big boom that was purported to "take out" starbucks was a positive strike. I haven't heard thunder quite like that since Arizona.

Mind you, getting hit by ANY lightning is bad and in fact, one shouldn't do what I used to do quite often, which is stand out somewhere neutrally safe and watch the storm. However, there is a moderate to low chance of survival with regular lightning. So far, no one has survived a positive strike.

However, there HAVE been close calls. Like this: http://205.243.100.155/frames/longarc.htm#Pos-Lightning1