These are images of lightning striking the WVAH television tower near St. Albans, WV on April 17, 2006 captured with two cameras, one with a telephoto lens for extreme close-up imagery. Visible in the video are the following features:
Molten metal - Glowing shards of molten metal arc-welded off of the antenna tip, seen drifting downwind like a fireworks burst.
Lightning channel 'bead out', lightning channel breaks up into segmented beads as it decays.
Channel drift - lightning channel moves along with the ambient wind direction
Soft thunder - these three lightning discharges were of relatively weak intensity, and coupled with the typical slow current 'ramp-up' common with upward-moving lightning, exhibited very quiet, soft thunder (as opposed to the usual sudden explosive burst of current seen with most lightning discharges).
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