One evening while changing a fluorescent bulb in my apartment, I
discovered another interesting effect of static electricity.
The air in my apartment was dry, and the electrical charges were
building up frequently, causing long (1" to 0.5") sparks to jump from my
fingers to anything grounded. As I carried a new 16" fluorescent tube
across the carpeted floor to fix the closet light, the
tube flickered in my hands. Furthermore, when I touched the contacts on
the end of the tube to something grounded, the tube illuminated brightly
for a split second.
You can try this at home with any fluorescent bulb. fluorescent bulbs are fragile and can break easily, so be careful.
About the Author: Dan Robinson has been a storm chaser, photographer and cameraman for 34 years. His career has involved traveling around the country covering the most extreme weather on the planet including tornadoes, hurricanes, lightning, floods and winter storms. Dan has been extensively published in newspapers, magazines, web articles and more, and has both supplied footage for and appeared in numerous television productions and newscasts. He has also been involved in the research community, providing material for published scientific journal papers on tornadoes and lightning.
My work is, at this very moment you are reading this, generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I was forced to shut down the professional side of my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.
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From Dan: Please Read
To my regular readers, I offer my apologies for this heavy-handed notice. Unfortunately it has become necessary, so please bear with me!
Please don't copy/upload this site's content to social media or other web sites. Those copies have been a critical problem for me, seriously harming this site and my photography/storm chasing operation by diverting traffic, viewers, engagement and income. "Credit" and "exposure" does not benefit this site or my operation, rather they threaten my ability to cover my operating expenses. Please read my full explanation for this notice here.
Before continuing, check each box to agree to and acknowledge these two statements:
Click this button to finalize this acknowledgement:
This chase was a routine television assignment in my role as a cameraman. As a result, many of these don't have a dedicated chase log.
This chase was only recorded in my mileage reports, no detailed log was written for it.
