Saint Elmo's fire phenomenon. Where do St. Elmo's Fires often appear? How St. Elmo's Fire is Formed
This phenomenon is familiar mainly to sailors. During a storm, luminous balls appear on the masts of ships, which can descend to the deck or hang on the rigging.
Among sailors, lights are considered a good sign. They say that this is a signal about the imminent end of the storm, which is given by Saint Elmo, the patron saint of sailors. The saint died during a storm, but before his death he promised his comrades to help cope with the elements and, showing the way with lights, led the ship through the waves to a quiet harbor.
St. Elmo's Fire has been described more than once by travelers. I myself recalled the appearance of a mysterious glow Christopher Columbus. Lights appeared on the mast of his ships shortly before the great navigator finally saw land. Another witness to the appearance of St. Elmo's lights was Charles Darwin. He observed a mysterious light while traveling around the world on the Beagle.
So what is this glow? In fact, there is nothing mysterious about the appearance of a “blue flame”. This is just an electrical discharge in the atmosphere that occurs during a thunderstorm. Around objects with sharp tops located at high altitudes, the electric field potential is especially high, which gives rise to the glow.
St. Elmo's lights can appear not only on the masts of ships, they often appear on mountain tops, on power lines, the tops of tall trees, and church spiers. A glow can also form on the skin of an aircraft when the airliner falls into a cloud of volcanic ash. Such a case was recorded in 1982. The incident occurred with a British airliner flying over the island of Java and falling into a column of volcanic ash. Neither the crew nor the passengers suspected anything until serious problems began on board. The pilots first noticed lights on the windshield. Then a glow appeared on the wings of the plane, while the instruments did not show the presence of a thunderstorm front. Soon lights surrounded the plane's engines. Passengers could observe bright flashes escaping directly from the turbines.
A few hours later, all four engines of the plane failed one by one. The ship's commander addressed the passengers with a statement that was later called the biggest understatement in history. "Ladies and Gentlemen! - said the ship's commander. - There was a small problem on board. All four engines failed. We're doing everything we can to get them up and running."
It was not possible to start the engines - the crew only temporarily started two failed turbines. The airliner planned, trying to reach Jakarta airport, where it could make an emergency landing. Just before the plane approached the port, St. Elmo's Lights reappeared on the windshield. The pilots considered this a good omen. The plane landed safely, despite the fact that the windshield almost completely lost its transparency, taxiing was impossible, and most of the instruments failed.
Brocken Visions
The Harz mountain range in Germany has long attracted thrill-seekers. In the vicinity of Mount Brocken, ghostly giants appear in the sky from time to time - huge moving shadows surrounded by luminous rings.
They said that Brocken is a place where witches gather for their sabbaths. There were rumors that in the vicinity of the mountain there lived huge sorcerers who could dissolve in space.
The mystery of the Brocken ghosts was revealed only in the 18th century. I figured it out physicist Haue. He managed to meet the Brocken ghost. At the moment the glowing ghost appeared, Haue was not at a loss and took off his hat to greet the newcomer. The ghost made the same movement. Haue waved his hand - the ghost repeated this too. It was then that the scientist realized that the figure in the luminous ring was nothing more than his own shadow!
The explanation turned out to be quite simple. There is often fog around Mount Brocken, and the clouds often fall below the peak. As a result, when the sun shines from behind a person, his shadow is projected into the fog or onto the clouds. And here an optical illusion arises. When a shadow lies on the ground, the observer can easily estimate its size. And when the shadow lies on a transparent surface, it becomes voluminous. However, it is impossible to estimate the exact distance to it. In this case, the shadow appears disproportionately large. In addition, the shadow displayed on the ground completely repeats the movements of the “owner”, and when he is motionless, the shadow also remains static. Another thing is a shadow cast in fog or clouds. On such a surface, the shadow can fluctuate due to the movement of air, and it seems that the silhouette is moving on its own. As for the rings of light surrounding the “ghost,” it is just a solar halo, the light of which is reflected from drops of water in clouds or fog. This creates a rainbow-like effect.
Dead Man's Candle
This is the name given to will-o-the-wisps that appear in the area of cemeteries and swamps. Usually the light appears at the level of the human chest, and it seems as if someone is moving in the dark, lighting their path with a candle. Meeting such lights never boded well - it was believed that the ghosts of the dead lured the living into forest thickets or swamps with the lights.
Hydrogen phosphide, which is formed during decay, is often mistaken for ghosts - it is no coincidence that ghosts live mainly in the vicinity of cemeteries and swamps, where active decomposition of organic remains occurs underground. The glowing gas rises up to two meters above the ground and is clearly visible in the dark. At the slightest gust of wind, it begins to move, so it may seem to a person that a ghost is luring him into a quagmire.
Even today, sea travel on a modern liner can be a risky undertaking. The elements can be stronger than man and technology. What was it like for the sailors who set off to unknown lands on fragile sailing ships? Who could you count on, who should you call on for help during terrible storms?
Since ancient times, Mediterranean sailors rejoiced and calmed down when an inexplicable glow appeared on the masts of sailing ships in bad weather. This meant that their patron saint, Elm, took them under his protection.
The dancing ones spoke of the strengthening of the storm, and the motionless lights of St. Elmo spoke of the weakening.
Saint Elmo
The day of remembrance of the Catholic martyr Elmus, who is also known as Erasmus (Ermo) of Antioch or Formia, is celebrated on June 2. The relics of the saint are in the temple named after him; he died in neighboring Formia in 303. Legend has it that he suffered martyrdom - the executioners wound his entrails on a winch.
This item remained as an attribute of the saint, with which he came to the aid of sailors in trouble.
Cold flame
The fire at the tips of the masts was described as looking like candle flames or fireworks, tassels or balls of pale blue or purple. The size of these lights is amazing - from 10 centimeters to a meter! Sometimes it seemed as if the entire rigging was covered in phosphorus and glowing. The glow could be accompanied by a hissing or whistling sound.
Attempts to break off part of the rigging and transfer the flames failed - the fire rose from the fragment to the mast. Nothing caught fire from the flame, it did not burn anyone, although it shone for quite a long time - from several minutes to an hour or longer.
Historical information
The ancient Greeks called this glow “Castor and Pollux”, “Helen”. There are also such names for the lights: Corpus Santos, “Saint Hermes”, “Saint Nicholas”.
The written sources that have reached us from Pliny the Elder and Julius Caesar, notes on the voyages of Columbus and Magellan, Darwin's letters from the Beagle, the works of Melville (Moby Dick) and Shakespeare speak of encounters between sailors and lights.
The chronicle of the circumnavigation of the world narrates: “During those storms, Saint Elmo himself appeared to us many times in the form of light... on extremely dark nights on the mainmast, where he remained for two or more hours, relieving us of despondency.”
Familiar not only to sailors
Not only on ships, but also on the spiers and corners of buildings, flagpoles, lightning rods and other tall objects and structures with sharp ends, St. Elmo's lights light up.
Airplane pilots are also familiar with this phenomenon. Tassel-shaped discharges - St. Elmo's lights - may appear on the propellers, pointed tips of the wings and fuselage of an airliner flying close to clouds. A photo of James Ashby, the crew chief, taken one day during a thunderstorm while landing in Phnom Penh, shows a blue glow on the nose of the plane.
At the same time, strong static radio interference occurs. It was believed that it was this fire that ignited the hydrogen and caused the crash of the huge and luxurious airship Hindenburg in May 1937.
Climbers are well acquainted with the lights of St. Elmo. When they enter a thundercloud, a luminous halo may appear above their heads, fingertips shine, and flames flow from ice axes. Observers say that even the tops of trees, the antlers of bulls and deer, and tall grass glow during a thunderstorm.
Mysterious effects
Nature presents people with many interesting things to unravel. Everyone knows that such phenomena as a rainbow, a halo (three suns) in cold weather, a mirage in hot weather are optical tricks of the atmosphere, creating prisms and mirrors in the air that refract and reflect light.
The mesmerizing blue and green flashes of the aurora are created by a disturbance in the Earth's electromagnetic fields. The electricity in the atmosphere is responsible for St. Elmo's Fire.
Scientific explanation
So what is St. Elmo's Fire? What is the nature of this phenomenon? Mythology gave way to Benjamin Franklin's 1749 explanation. It was he who described how a lightning rod attracts heavenly “electric fire” from a cloud at a distance even before the strike occurs. The glow at the tip of the device is St. Elmo's Fire.
It ionizes the air; around pointed objects the concentration of ions becomes maximum. The ionized plasma begins to glow, but, unlike lightning, it stands still and does not move.
The color of the plasma depends on the composition of the ionized gas. Nitrogen and oxygen, which make up most of the atmosphere, create a light blue glow.
Corona discharge
A corona, or glow, discharge occurs if the potential of the electric field in the air is non-uniform, and around a single object it becomes more than 1 volt/cm. In good weather this value is a thousand times less. At the beginning of the formation of thunderclouds, it rises to 5 volts/cm. A lightning strike is a discharge of more than 10 volts per centimeter.
The magnitude of the potential is distributed non-uniformly in the atmosphere - it is greater near pointed objects located at a height.
It becomes clear that the proximity of a thunderstorm (or tornado) creates a potential in the atmosphere sufficient for the appearance of an ion avalanche, causing a bluish glow of pointed objects located at an elevation. A sandstorm and volcanic eruption also ionize the air and can cause this phenomenon.
Tamed Glow
Modern people go sailing or flying during a thunderstorm to look at the glow of ionized gas, which is what St. Elmo's fire is. What it is can be seen in a regular fluorescent lamp, neon and other halogen lamps.
Airplanes have to install devices that prevent atmospheric electricity from accumulating on the surface and causing interference.
But although romance and myths give way to everyday life, interest and excitement associated with unusual natural phenomena will never leave a person. The mysterious blue lights of St. Elmo will excite the imagination of travelers and interested readers.
One of the most beautiful and amazing natural phenomena is the so-called St. Elmo's fire, which can sometimes be observed on the tops of pointed objects.
The upper branches of trees, the spiers of towers, the tops of masts at sea and other similar places are sometimes illuminated with a flickering bluish glow. It can look different: like an even flickering glow in the form of a crown or halo, like dancing flames, like fireworks scattering sparks.
Why is St. Elmo's Fire called that?
In medieval Europe, dancing lights were associated with the image of the Catholic Saint Elmo (Erasmus), who patronized sailors. Legend has it that the saint died during a storm on the deck of a ship. Before his death, he promised that from the other world he would pray for the sailors and give signs about their future fate, and these signs would be dancing magic lights.
The saint kept his word: since then, the lights that appeared on the masts of the ship during a storm predicted the imminent end of the bad weather and served as a good sign for sailors. But if the fire descended from the mast to the deck or shone above a person, it was considered a warning of impending misfortune or even death.
Most often, St. Elmo's lights can be seen in mountainous areas; sometimes it is found in the steppe zone or at sea. In our latitudes, will-o'-the-wisps appear extremely rarely - this is due to the physical nature of the phenomenon, the appearance of which requires special circumstances.
How are St. Elmo's Fire formed?
The hypothesis that St. Elmo's fire is associated with appeared in the eighteenth century: it was expressed by the famous researcher Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the first to conduct experiments to study electrical discharges. However, scientists were able to fully describe the physical nature of the phenomenon only in the twentieth century.
The appearance of the glow is due to the presence of a large number of ionized particles in the air. Usually their presence in the air mass is extremely small, but during a thunderstorm their number increases sharply - to such an extent that they can generate a fairly strong electromagnetic field. 
The collision of an ion with an ordinary gas molecule leads to the appearance of a charge on the particle that was previously neutral. The field voltage increases rapidly, and the ionization process in this case resembles a snow avalanche. This phenomenon is called impact ionization and was described in detail by N. Tesla.
At a certain stage, particle collisions lead to the formation of a glow in places where the field has particularly high strength.
As a rule, this occurs around sharp protruding objects, which most often turn out to be ship masts, tower spiers or the tops of tall trees. These places serve as a kind of lightning rods through which atmospheric electricity “drains” into the ground, accompanying the process with a characteristic crackling sound and the smell of ozone.
One of the most common sights pilots see is St. Elmo's lights, which form on the tips of wings or propeller blades when an aircraft has to cross the front of storm clouds. Electrical discharges often reach such strength that they interfere with radio communications.
There are still possible cases of aircraft deaths due to loss of controllability, although today every aircraft is necessarily equipped with devices for neutralizing atmospheric discharges.
Why can't we see St. Elmo's lights?
In our country, St. Elmo's fire is an extremely rare phenomenon; there is not even a proper name for it, so we use the European one.
The fact is that for the glow to form, the ionized air mass must descend quite low, and in our country the minimum height of a thundercloud is at least half a kilometer.
In the mountainous areas of the Alps or Pyrenees, this height is significantly reduced. Hurricane-force winds raging over the surface of the sea can also drop ionized air low enough to cause ship masts to glow. 
The appearance of atmospheric electricity discharges can damage electronics: mobile phones, computers and other equipment. Therefore, you should not regret the absence of St. Elmo's lights - although they are very beautiful, contemplation of this beauty can be quite expensive for ordinary people.
Text by Sergei Borisov, magazine version
Lights WITH Saint Elma
Saint Elmo" s lights
The Roman philosopher Seneca said that sometimes “the stars seem to descend from heaven and land on the masts of ships.”
The ancient Greeks called them the fires of the twin brothers Dioscuri - Castor and Polydeuces, patrons of sailors, and the lights were lit by their sister, the beautiful Helen. Later, in the writings of Titus Livy, it was noted: when Lysander's fleet went out to sea to fight the Athenians, lights flashed on the masts of the commander's galley, and all the soldiers took this as a good omen.
Much later, the fires of the Dioscuri began to be called the fires of St. Elmo, because they often appeared on the spiers of St. Elmo's Cathedral in Italy. But no matter what they were called, these lights were always a symbol of hope; their appearance meant that the worst was over.
During Christopher Columbus's voyage to America, a storm broke out. What happened next, the legend says: “Exhausted by hard work, frightened by lightning and the fierce ocean, the sailors began to grumble. For all their troubles they blamed Columbus, who started this crazy voyage that has no and will never end. Then Columbus ordered everyone to go up on deck and look at the masts. Lights glowed at their ends. And the sailors rejoiced, for they realized that Saint Elmo was merciful to them, and the voyage would end safely, and everyone would remain alive.”
The fires of St. Elmo were also perceived by Magellan's companions as a good sign. The chronicler of the first circumnavigation of the world, the knight Pythaget, left the following entry in his diary: “During bad weather, we often saw a glow, which is called the fires of St. Elmo. One night it appeared to us like a kind light. The lights remained at the top of the mainmast for two hours. In the midst of a fierce storm this was a great consolation to us. Before disappearing, the glow flashed so brightly that we were delighted and stunned. Someone exclaimed in disbelief that we were about to die, but at the same moment the wind died down.”
In 1622, thousands of “holy fires” strewn the Maltese galleys returning to their native island, and 64 years later, the “holy fire” literally captured a French ship heading to Madagascar. Abbot Chauzi, who was on board, wrote: “A terrible wind blew, rain poured, lightning flashed, all the waves of the sea were in flames. Suddenly I saw the lights of St. Elmo on the masts of our ship. They were the size of a fist and jumped on the yards, and some went down to the deck. They sparkled and did not burn, because their holiness did not allow them to do evil. They behaved on the ship as if they were at home. They had fun themselves and made us laugh. And this continued until dawn."
And another testimony from the captain of the ship “Moravia” A. Simpson, relating to the “incident that took place near the Cape Verde Islands” on December 30, 1902: “For an hour, lightning flashed in the sky. The ropes, the tops of the masts and the ends of the yards - everything glowed. It seemed like lit lanterns were hung on all the forestays every four feet.”
As a rule, St. Elmo's lights are luminous balls, less often they resemble bunches or tassels, and even less often they resemble torches. But no matter how these lights look, they have nothing to do... with fire.
These are electrical discharges that occur when the electric field in the atmosphere is high, which most often happens during a thunderstorm. Ordinary lightning is accompanied by deafening thunder, because lightning is a strong and fast electrical discharge. However, under certain conditions, it is not the discharge that occurs, but the outflow of charges. This is the same discharge, but only “quiet”; it is also called crown, that is, crowning an object like a crown. With such a discharge, electric sparks begin to jump out one after another from various sharp protrusions - the same ship masts. If there are a lot of sparks and the process lasts more or less long, a glow occurs.
In general, if your yacht suddenly lights up like a Christmas tree, don't grab the fire extinguisher. You're in luck - these are St. Elmo's lights, which always bring good luck to sailors. The only trouble that threatens you is radio interference. But you can survive it, the spectacle is worth it!
Ball lightning
Ball- lightning
Nobody knows what it is - ball lightning. The greatest minds of mankind struggled with the solution, trying to create a physical theory of the occurrence and course of this phenomenon, but were forced to limit themselves to hypotheses, which in the mouth of a common person sound like this: “Perhaps... cannot be ruled out... if we assume...” There are more than two hundred such hypotheses today, and Among them there are completely exotic ones, such as: “messengers from a parallel world” and “sublimated unity of quasiparticles.” And this despite the fact that it has long been known what ball lightning consists of: nitrogen, oxygen, ozone, water vapor, etc. Perhaps ball lightning is a bunch of super-calorie fuel with an energy of up to 1 million J and an explosion power equal to the explosion of several tens of kilograms of TNT. At the same time, the low density of ball lightning allows it to float in the air, and its own energy source allows it to move at a very decent speed.
But these are all theories, but practice shows that ball lightning is dangerous for both people and ships, because they often occur above the water surface.
Here's what happened to the sloop Catherine and Mary in 1726, according to the report of its captain, John Howell: “We were off the coast of Florida. Suddenly a fireball appeared in the air, which hit our mast and smashed it into 1000 pieces. Then he killed one man, wounded another and tried to burn our sails, but the rain prevented him.”
In 1749, ball lightning attacked the Montego, the ship of the English Admiral Chambers. Dr. Gregory, who was on the ship, testifies: “About noon we noticed a large fireball about three miles from the ship. The admiral ordered a change of course, but the ball caught up with us. He was flying forty or fifty yards above the sea. Once above the ship, it exploded with a roar. The top of the mainmast was demolished. Five people on deck were knocked off their feet. The ball left behind a strong smell of sulfur. The Lord saved us from the devil.”
In 1809, the English warship Warren Hastings was attacked by three ball lightnings at once. Here are the lines from the report on what happened: “One of the balls dived and killed the sailor. His comrade, who rushed to his aid, was knocked down by the second ball, scorched by flames and leaving severe burns. The third ball killed another person.”
Finally, a case from our time. In 1984, ball lightning nearly sent the yacht of Chicago resident Wilfred Derry to the bottom of Lake Erie. She appeared after the rain, as if out of nowhere. They noticed it too late, and when Wilfred tried to start the engine, he was unable to do so because the microwave radiation disrupted the electrical system. The lightning hung over the ship for a minute or two, then dropped slightly... and exploded. Shell-shocked Derry fell to the deck. The explosion damaged his eardrums, and a flash of “a thousand suns” took away his vision. Derry also suffered thermal burns. Fortunately, he was not alone on board; his wife was sleeping in the cabin. She brought the yacht, whose engine suddenly magically “came to life,” to the shore. Hearing and vision returned to the victim of ball lightning only after a few weeks.
It should be noted that Wilfred Derry was still lucky - both in terms of health and in terms of his property. His ship could burst into flames like a candle! But the lightning exploded above the yacht, and not upon contact with it. The substance of ball lightning has the property, firstly, of scattering into thousands of small balls of fire, and secondly, of sticking to the surface. Then the tree catches fire, and due to the sharp temperature change, the glass cracks and the plastic warps. Finally, lightning could burn through the side or window glass and explode in the cabin. In short, it could have been worse.
Observations show that ball lightning usually moves towards polluted air, for example, smoke from a chimney or from a fire. They are also attracted to exhaust gases, which explains why ball lightning sometimes pursues ships.
However, sailing yachts also cannot feel safe, especially those sailing at a decent speed. Behind a fast-moving ship, an area of low pressure is formed in warmer air, and this is like a “guiding thread” for ball lightning.
So what to do when encountering ball lightning? First of all, you need to try to avoid a head-on collision, and then you have a choice. Option #1. You turn off the engine (if it was running), take refuge in the cabin, closing the door and battening down the windows, and wait for the uninvited guest to leave you behind, because her lifespan is short. Option #2. If you are confident in the speed capabilities of your boat, you take off; Ball lightning's energy reserves will be enough for a minute or two of pursuit, after which it will either explode behind your stern, or, having used up its energy resources, will rise up and... disappear. Which is what is required.…
St. Elmo's fire and ball lightning are phenomena with a "+" sign and a "-" sign. Don't be afraid of the first and beware of the second. We warned you, and those who are warned are protected.
In the darkest place
A lightning strike to the mast can disable the vessel. A particular danger in this case is posed by ungrounded masts that extend to the keel - a lightning discharge passes through the mast almost without resistance and pierces the keel and plating.
A lightning rod on a mast, one end of which is in contact with water, can be considered reliable protection if there is a sufficiently large transition area under water with a resistance in the range of 0.5 - 1 ohm. With a small transition area in the water, a “voltage funnel” is formed - a gigantic potential difference between the end of the wire and the water. This difference can lead to the yacht being hit by a second blow, which will follow from the water and be stronger than the first, due to the effect of the so-called “cascading overlay”. Therefore, metal plates made of stainless steel, brass, bronze or copper must be attached to the keel. In general, the more metal parts on the ship that ensure the transfer of charge from the atmosphere to water, the better. True, the abundance of metal often negatively affects radio communications, causing interference.
Mount the lightning rod so that it rises approximately 10 cm above the mast. An insulated copper cable with a cross-section of 35 mm2 or an aluminum cable with a cross-section of 50 mm2 is usually used as the lightning rod itself. Inside the mast or fixed along it, the lightning rod goes down to the deck, passes through it, goes under the floorboards and is secured to the keel bolts. The negative terminal of the battery and the antenna are grounded by the main wire; rudder stock, fuel tanks, engine - with side outlets.
It should be borne in mind that even with good lightning protection, lightning can cause trouble. For example, the deviation table of a compass requires correction after a lightning strike, as the magnetism of the ship changes.
The ancient Roman philosopher Seneca, dividing fire into two types - earthly and heavenly, argued that during a thunderstorm “the stars seem to descend from the sky and land on the masts of ships.” But the main difference between heavenly fire and earthly fire is that it does not burn or ignite objects and cannot be extinguished with water.
Cohorts of Roman legionnaires, setting up a night bivouac, stuck their spears into the ground, surrounding the camp with a kind of fence. When the weather foreshadowed a night thunderstorm, blue tassels of “heavenly fire” were often lit on the tips of the spears. This was a good sign from heaven: since ancient times, such a glow was called the fires of the Dioscuri, who were considered the heavenly patrons of warriors and sailors.
2000 years later, in the more enlightened 17th-18th centuries, this phenomenon was adapted to warn of a thunderstorm. In many European castles, a spear was installed on a dais. Since the fire of the Dioscuri was not visible during the day, the guard regularly brought a halberd to the tip of the spear: if sparks jumped between them, he should immediately ring the bell, warning of an approaching thunderstorm. Naturally, at this time the phenomenon was no longer called by a pagan name, and since most often such a glow appeared on the spiers and crosses of churches, many local names appeared: the lights of Saints Nicholas, Claudius, Helen and, finally, Saint Elmo.
Depending on where the “heavenly fire” appears, it can take different forms: a uniform glow, individual flickering lights, tassels or torches. Sometimes it resembles an earthly flame so much that they have tried to extinguish it. There were other oddities.
In 1695, a sailing ship was caught in a thunderstorm in the Mediterranean Sea. Fearing a storm, the captain ordered the sails to be lowered. And immediately over 30 St. Elmo’s lights appeared on different parts of the ship’s spar. On the weathervane of the mainmast the fire reached half a meter in height. The captain, apparently having previously taken a pint of rum, sent a sailor up the mast to remove the fire. Having gone upstairs, he shouted that the fire was hissing like an angry cat and did not want to be removed. Then the captain ordered it to be removed along with the weather vane. But as soon as the sailor touched the weather vane, the fire jumped to the end of the mast, from where it was impossible to remove it.
A little earlier, on June 11, 1686, “Saint Elmo” descended on a French warship. Abbot Chauzy, who was on board, left his descendants with personal impressions of his meeting with him. “A terrible wind blew,” wrote the abbot, “it rained, lightning flashed, the whole sea was on fire. Suddenly I saw St. Elmo's lights on all our masts, which descended to the deck. They were the size of a fist, glowed brightly, jumped and did not burn at all. Everyone smelled sulfur. Will-o'-the-wisps felt right at home on the ship. This continued until dawn."
On December 30, 1902, the ship Moravia was near the Cape Verde Islands. Captain Simpson, having taken up his watch, made a personal note in the ship's log: “For a whole hour, lightning flashed in the sky. The steel ropes, the tops of the masts, the ends of the yards and cargo booms - everything glowed. It seemed as if lighted lanterns were hung on all the forestays every four feet. The glow was accompanied by a strange noise: as if myriads of cicadas had settled in the equipment, or dead wood and dry grass were burning with a crackling sound.”
St. Elmo's lights also appear on aircraft. Navigator A.G. Zaitsev left the following note about his observation: “It was in the summer of 1952 over Ukraine. As we descended we passed through thunderclouds. It got dark overboard, as if it was twilight. Suddenly we saw light blue flames twenty centimeters high dancing along the leading edge of the wing. There were so many of them that the wing seemed to be burning along the entire rib. About three minutes later the lights disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared.”
The “heavenly fire” is also observed by specialists who are required to do so by their line of work. In June 1975, employees of the Astrakhan Hydrometeorological Observatory were returning from work in the north of the Caspian Sea. “In complete darkness, we got out of the reed thickets and walked through the shallow water to a motor boat left two kilometers from the shore,” N.D. Gershtansky, candidate of geological and mineralogical sciences, later wrote. — Somewhere in the north lightning flashed. Suddenly, all of our hair began to glow with phosphorescent light. Tongues of cold flame appeared near the fingers of the raised hands. When we lifted the measuring stick, the top lit up so brightly that the manufacturer's tag could be read. All this lasted about ten minutes. Interestingly, the glow did not appear below a meter above the water surface.”
But St. Elmo's lights don't only appear before a thunderstorm. In the summer of 1958, employees of the Institute of Geography carried out meteorological measurements under the International Geophysical Year program on a glacier in the Trans-Ili Alatau at an altitude of 4000 meters. On June 23, a snowstorm began and it became colder. On the night of June 26, meteorologists leaving the house saw an amazing picture: blue tongues of cold flame appeared on weather instruments, antennas, and icicles on the roof of the house. It also appeared on the fingers of raised hands. On the precipitation gauge, the flame height reached 10 centimeters. One of the employees decided to touch the flame on the hook of the gradient rod with a pencil. At the same moment, lightning struck the bar. People were blinded and knocked off their feet. When they got up, the fire disappeared, but a quarter of an hour later it appeared in its original place.
In the south of the Tver region there is the Rodnya mound. Its top is overgrown with coniferous forest, and local residents try not to go there, since the mound has a bad reputation. In the summer of 1991, a group of tourists camping nearby for the night observed a strange phenomenon: in pre-storm weather, blue lights began to light up one after another above the trees at the top of the mound. When the tourists climbed the hill the next day, they accidentally discovered that some trees were equipped with “lightning rods” in the form of copper wire wrapped around the trunks. Apparently, there were jokers who wanted to somehow use the notoriety of the hill.
The nature of St. Elmo's fire is undoubtedly associated with electrical processes in the atmosphere. In good weather, the electric field strength at the ground is 100-120 V/m, that is, between the fingers of a raised hand and the ground it will reach approximately 220 volts. Unfortunately, at a very scanty current. Before a thunderstorm, this field strength increases to several thousand V/m, and this is already enough to cause a corona discharge. The same effect can be observed in snow and sand storms and volcanic clouds.
Loading...