Rare Lightning Travelling from Ground To Clouds In Slow Motion 

Lightning expert here. This is what's called "Lightning-triggered Upward Lightning". It's a bit different from common cloud-to-ground lightning where a downward leader attaches to an upward leader very close to the ground. The first thing you see is a brightening of the clouds. These are negative-polarity leaders discharging a positive charge layer inside the cloud. This discharging causes a sudden electric field change which induces an upward positive (not negative) leader from a tall structure over the horizon-- possibly the Golden Gate Bridge or a skyscraper or radio mast. This positive leader runs into a negative charge layer that's just below the clouds and meanders around, brightening as it finds pockets of more intense negative charge. Eventually the positive leaders start branching and this is when the fun begins. These branches are poorly ionized and there are fast bidirectional leaders that form around the tips of the decayed positive branches. They are called "recoil leaders" and these are the strobing channel segments that we see later on in the video. The bright event that you discuss throughout the video is actually quite interesting. I've looked at the footage multiple times and it looks like the brightening originates from the first branch point and progresses through the main branch. This tells me that there was current cutoff in the main branch near the branch point which suddenly became bridged, allowing much higher current to flow back to the tower and increasing electric potential at the leader tips. I record high-speed lightning video with the same model of camera (it's a Mark 5 instead of a 7, still records 960fps) and I upload the recordings to this channel so if anyone wants to see more high-speed lightning video then feel free to stop by! --Chris K

That was probably from me. My parents always said I have a lot of potential.

It is amazing to watch the electrons trace a momentary path of least resistance in a dynamically changing 3D volume of vorticity and vapor.

I love so much that Scott has transitioned from video game youtuber to science uncle

Thank you Scott. On behalf of my fellow meteorologists, we thank you for the treat. Personally, I'm glad you caught this and shared it. I'll be referring my colleagues to this one. Much appreciated!

In college I was instructed most lightening is ground to cloud in the early stages of a strike. That was 20 years ago. Wonderful video. Thanks.

Suspicious Observers sent me Great catch.

1.21 gigawatts!?! Great Scott!

I witnessed this event from my front porch in Fremont. Looking towards the south the display i saw from 5:20an too 6:15am Sunday morning was one of the most spectacular lighting events i have ever seen.

Lightning ALWAYS grows from both endpoints at once. Tendrils of opposite-charge ions extend up from the ground and down from the clouds until they meet somewhere in the middle; this is why people often report they feel their hair standing on-end a few seconds before they get hit by lightning. The path the lightning _appears_ to take is the result of whether the path branches more near the ground or near the clouds, because the end with fewer branching paths has to conduct more amperage and thus the ionized air gets excited to the point of phosphorescence faster.

That was amazing to watch. I live in the southeast where storms like this can be an every evening occurence and have always been fascinated by taking (still) pictures of lightning. Back in the days of film cameras, I would burn the batteries so fast that I ended up buying a completely manual camera just for that purpose. I love finding nights like this and getting myself into a position where I can be beside the storm to try to capture the bolts that come from the top, outside the cloud, and have been very lucky quite a few times to get some pretty amazing shots. Thanks for sharing the slow motion shot as it was just amazing!

The lightning woke us up too, it was quite a show! Very interesting to see how the lightning travels!

Hey, you got featured by Suspicious Observers. I suggest you check out why this is actually happening so much this year. It's today's morning clip.

I've lived in the Bay Area for (next month) 33 years. While fairly small lightning storms used to be more or less annual, usually one or two during the fall season back when we actually had a fall season, they've been far rarer since about 2006. And even still, I've never seen anything like what we got in my entire life.

Back in 2013 I was at the National Scout Jamboree in West Virginia. One night a massive lightning bolt lit up nearly half the sky. It was really impressive. So impressive that several hundred people cheered and clapped for the great show.

I live in Orinda which is right near Walnut Creek, and it was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen! I’ve never seen lightning here in the Bay Area and I was up all morning watching it

"..when I wake up in the middle of the night by a lightning storm my first call is just to try and take photographs of it." Ahh, right in the feels!

in soviet bay area, lightning strikes cloud!

What's interesting it to be in a commercial aircraft late at night flying over mountains and watching lighting in the cloud's you are flying past. Like giant light bulb's in the sky. Especially since the cabin was darkened. The pilot flew a gentle S pattern between the storm's. That happened 35 or so years ago and I will never forget it.

1:07 lightning on the background draws a HEART

This has been a very interesting few weeks here in the bay. The fires sparked are the worst part but the storms themselves have been great to watch. Thank you for capturing this video

Anyone remember the big lightning storm in Ireland in the 80's? It started around 6pm and didn't stop till the early hours next morning. It practically didn't get dark the whole night and if my parents description is right, there was st elmos fire arcing off the barn and lightning arcing along the floods of water washing down our lane by the house. I was young then and scared to stick my head out from under the duvet. I wish i looked at some of it now. 😔

Absolutely enthralling! Just watching that is a physics lesson and an art lesson at the same time.

Fork lightning and volcanic lightning is the best, sheet lightning just illuminates everything....well captured Scott 👍🏼😊

Intriguing. It reminds me of how aliens descended in the movie 'War of the Worlds', but backwards.

Beautiful photography Scott, and a great explanation that follows. Another amazing gift you’ve given to all of us.

Love the power of storms always try and get out when one hits.

I used to live in SF and lightning is very rare since most storms are strataform from the Gulf of Alaska. Now I'm in NYC and almost all summer storms are thunderstorms. It's sooo cool to step outside and watch the lightning (from the street there's low risk as there are much taller buildings in the area for the lightning to find an easier path to ground).

Sent over by Suspicious Observer, thank you for recording this. A 'shocking' slowmo. ;)

Popped in from SuspiciousObserver after seeing a couple frames of your capture. Glad I came to watch your whole vid! Keep up the Great work, will definitely be back again Scott !!! 👍🙂

NICE! Great capture. Featured on S0. Sent us here to see the entire video. So cool!

I stayed up all night watching that storm, too! So fantastic! :D

Lightning is the OG gradient descent calculator

There's a few videos showing upward lightning, some even show the leader from the cloud, then several 'fingers' from the ground reaching up (like the animation, but more than one finger), then one of the fingers connect. There's also research groups that fire rockets into the sky with a thin wire attached so they can capture lightning, one of the groups even brought the wire down to a sand container to produce 'fulgarites' Search for 'rocket triggered lightning' as well as lightning research.

i love it that you say fly safe even when the topic of the video isn't about space

The first lighting bolt with RCS thrusters. The fact that it hit a quick 90° angle to the right gives it away 😉👍🏻

I’m almost jealous of where Scott Manley lives. Right next to San Francisco, rocket launches from Vandenberg, perfect California weather most of the time, lots of pretty scenery. Must be nice

My grandad told me lightning can sometimes go up from the ground when I was a kid. None of my mates believed me, even my teacher in school told me not to be so silly. Grandad was right...

It's a lovely video, great trigger timing. My RX100 mk4 sadly isn't useable anymore as the rear screen basically died and couldn't be repaired. I loved the 1000fps feature but I didn't use it to shoot video anyways. My GX9 now doesn't any high fps feature due to a slow buffer. The charged air particles massively expand and heat up. The cool really fast afterwards and basically cause this giant column of low desire air. It falls against itself and causes the thunder sound.

fantastic to watch the lightning stages all in a second or so , a lot is revealed in slow mo , thanks so much

All Lightning starts from the ground as a leader, which meets a charge coming down from the clouds to complete the circuit. This is only in the case of ground to cloud lightning and doesn't include cloud to cloud or cloud to space (sprites and jets)

So the 'anchor' for the lightning was passing current for almost 2/3 second? Youch!

Electrifying material Scott. Thank U!

We’ve all seen plenty of lightning vids and pics. But that’s a great capture!! One of the most busy bolts I think I’ve ever seen, and ground to air is an extra special capture - high speed no less.

actually amazed by quality of video at this dark with such good frames per second using off market camera

Its great one of my favorite scientists refers me to watch another great space informant. Thanks for both S0 for the referral and thanks Scott for talking about this.

Thanks. It's one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

I live in Minneapolis, MN and, even though there are buildings and light pollution, we still get plenty of very visible thunderstorms. I absolutely love watching the lightning during a storm!

1:02 that's some weird Travelling salesman algorhythm nature was running!

Strange timing. Had a large lightning storm in my part of Western Canada last night. Very rare.

Ground to cloud lightning is so cool

That's the best lighting footage I've ever seen. Nice work

My god! I used to take time exposure lighting pictures with my 35 mm Nikon this is a whole other level! Absolutely amazing! Thank you for sharing! From the ground up demonstrated beautifully Nikolai Tesla would be impressed ! 😎👍

Scott: Im not a lighting expert Me: I've learned more about lightning than I'll ever need to know in 5 minutes

I believe all lightning is both ways; opposites attract. It is the return stroke that produces the visible flash. Great vid!!

Directed here from Suspicious0bservers. Thank you for this rare capture and opportunity for learning from your channel.

Scott, working 30 Yrs. for the best aircraft company in the world, providing paths for lightning current through an airplane was one of my assignments. It was a very interesting job. We had a world class lightning lab. My group once had a inquiry from an airline that asked , "what do we do different from the other airline company about lightning protection". Well it seems that things fall off when struck by lightning on the other guys airplanes. My company designed protection to protect from a 200K Amp strike. I have a book I used, I am now retired, I would like to share with you. luetner at hot-----

This is one of the best videos I have seen of lightning.

Amazing that you can see that much motion in 960fps, I thought it moved a lot faster than that!

This is the most amazing lightning video I have ever seen.....

I've had this happen 50 feet from my apartment while working in the Forest Service & it made the strangest whooshing sound as it crackled further up. The next day the Forested found that the tree had instantly been killed & dry rotted when he dropped it.

Lately I've been using my AM radio in my car to listen to my car internal electrical signals, still an ice car, and its fun. Also electrical fences for liveststock can be heard from a long way as well as traffic detection loops and more. When a few day back a fat thunderstorm was rolling over my city. Every channel was overwhelmed with signals from the thunderstorm. Not merely the actual discharge events are audible, but also the many many attempts (the failed streamers lets say) are very audible. I had much fun in my faraday cage on wheels, parked somewhere with the engine off. Best quility news broadcoasting in almost real time in a while if you ask me, It put a big grin on my face and yelled *H%#%%$5 when "my" near streamer won (I managed to spot a few a them with my eyes. Nerdy, nah not at all ;) :) Your ground to cloud gem is awesome. Im kinda glad it was not a ground to cloud one I observed, sitting in my flimsy faraday cage knowing that the energies involved apparently are magnitudes of order larger than the more common ones. Cool footage.

Thank You! So glad Suspicious Observers featured your vid, subscribed today...wonderful look and great info 👍🏻

Yes yesterday nights lightning storm was crazy all over the Bay Area

It's pretty fun if you are not familiar that electron flow is typically from ground to cloud in the majority of lightning strikes. The human eye typically doesn't register the direction.

I know how difficult and frustrating it can be to get a good shot of lightning, so well done on a great capture!

This is positive lightning. Usually caused by the anvil of the thunderstorm cloud. Great catch.

The weather went from calm to severe thunderstorm so fast, it was pretty crazy for the bay area.

Earths weakening magnetic field allows earths core to charge up more easily from space particles, intern you get these earth discharges.

Wait...I was always taught that lightning always goes from bottom to top, we simply usually do not see a leading strike, just the later discharges.🤔 Edit: apparently it depends from terrain, terrain with lot of tall objects (like trees) tend to have more bottom to top lightnings.

That was the best I've seen in years! Thank you!

This is incredible! I slept through it! Love your explanation. Thank you for sharing.

Hahah, very interesting Mr Manley. So I'm not the only one waking up to see lightning during storms :)

The entire NOAA presentation on the science of lightning can be viewed here: www.weather.gov/media/safety/Dr_Lightning_Guide-science.ppsx . According to the presentation, the most common cloud to ground lightning consists of (1) stepped leader (2) return stroke (3) dart leaders (4) return strokes. The visible flash is called a return stroke, and according to the presentation, occurs from the ground to the cloud. The illustration indicates cascading from the ground to the cloud.

I woke up to this lightning storm. I was surprised, cause we don't get lightning storms around here too often.

I love watching lightning but have not had any for years here in my part of the UK

I have been discussing these for months now - 10x the reports of upward lightning. Earth-discharge. Right now the magnetosphere is weakening and allowing in more cosmic rays to excite the global electric circuit. Much of this current accumulates in the ground. The sun is also slightly weaker now than in previous decades, and so the electrical environment of space (solar wind) is weaker... more in earth, less out there. Electricity will go to where its less crowded, just like air pressure.

Suspicious0bservers brought me here.

I love watching lightning, plenty of storms here in Thailand at the mo as it is rainy season :)

Great capture Scott! Cool to see Ben pick this up also. Us great minds and all.

Pecos Hank Has some great shots as well. Underrated channel.

I've got an app on my android phone called "Lightning Camera" that has a buffer & records when you hit the button just as you describe. It only gives you stills but if you can't afford a high speed camera it's way better than nothing. I've got quite a few shots now of lightning. Great fun!

The SloMo guys traveled to Singapore last year and got some excellent lightning slow motion video. I believe the ground to cloud leader ALWAYS happens with every lightning strike.

I find it interesting that immediately after a lightning has struck, you can see the left over plasma fade out. I've also found it interesting that you can see where a bolt was, as it leaves the air burned where it was. (basically a small whiff of smoke)

It was just Iroh redirecting lighting.

It's very possible that golden bridge "started" this, cause ground-to-cloud lightning usually starts from high man-made objects

We were camping at Lawsons Landing / Dillons beach and were jolted awake at first from the crazy wind then a few minutes later we had the amazing lightning. What a crazy 24 hours of weather in the Bay Area.

I can only guess what an amazing sound this strike produced.

Lightning in the South Bay, is rare. A few years ago, we had one hit in the middle of the night. People call 911 thinking it was a plane crash. PS. I thought it was as well

Rj sir❤

Very cool get! One of the best slo-mos I've ever seen!

During thunderstorms I always like to pull out my AM radio to listen to the lightning. During this storm I could hear so many different types of strikes. Short pops of varying volume from the single bolts, sometimes a crackle when a swarm of bolts went off, then the most interesting was sometimes a longer creaking/crackling noise that would happen during long, large strikes, presumable caused by the leader slowly snaking around, constantly moving the charge that my radio was picking up as EM.

You guys were probably freaking out like Atlanta in a snow storm.

Hi Scott! I think we're practically neighbors in relative terms :] We had a great view from here in Montara, just north of HMB. Thanks for sharing your footage :D

In 1990 I had a callout to a power alarm in Wantage England during a storm. The lightning was cloud to cloud for over an hour. I rode my motorcycle from Didcot all the way there, about 10 miles, dealt with the fault and all the way back without the lights on my bike. It was 2am!

Beautiful, Scott. Thanks!

Take a trip to Florida in July-August. You'll have hundreds of these shots within a couple of weeks. Probably not as good as this one most of the time. Florida has an over abundance of lightning occuring daily in summer months.

Doesn't MOST lightning have a return stroke up like this?

Pecos Hank has a good video describing lightning physics. Well captured lightning.

Interesting and unexpected - classic Scott Manley. Many thanks.