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A good friend of mine who has lived on the island for many decades told me that the thunderstorms in recent years have been very unusual. They said that many years ago there would be thunder and lightning around the mountains but rare in Hilo and other windward coastal areas. Up until the year 2000 when the great storm hit I didn't experience any storms other than a few I saw out to sea. Now we get them nearly every winter.
My house has been struck by lightning several times and I've also lost a few palm trees to lightning. These have all occurred since 2000. On one particular night, I think it was the winter of 2003/2004, my house was struck 3 times within twenty minutes. The next year I was literally blown back from my lanai by a lightning strike (leilaniguy - your story really brought back memories!). I used to love thunder and lightning but no longer. I get very anxious whenever I hear thunder or see lightning.
I've been meaning to tell my story in my blog but still haven't got around to it. In fact I was going to do it just the other day but then we had a couple of lightning strikes at work which took out a palm tree and some of the ground around it. I didn't hide under the desk but was close to doing so!
No matter. I've traveled the world and experienced some nasty storms but the ones I've seen here in the last few years, especially the lightning, is a new experience for me.
Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/
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More strikes due to more development? as well as weather pattern changes.
Having spent a few years in the tropics at similar latitudes, I was astounded to see how little pro active lightening protection is done on this island - its not rocket science.
water conducts electricity effectively making any wet unprotected structure attractive to strikes. Those stories about "lightning balls" in structures is an indication that the lighting has no access to a good ground on its way out.
If it can not find a good ground to strike to - your grounded water (or propane -ouch) pipes will do.......
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quote:
Originally posted by sistersue
Are these scary stories normal for most thunder storms or is Hawaii different? ...
I would agree with TomK - that storm in 2000 was the 1st I remember - in fact SB had just moved here and we all were excited on 11-2-00 about the thunder/lighting as it rarely never happened. This past decade seems to have seen more and more of them. Wasn't it 2 Decembers past that we had all the lighting and there was a direct hit in HPP, and HA a house burned down?
That's very interesting and somewhat alarming, Tom. I have had a tendency to take the lightning storms not so seriously. I'm thinking I've been wrong about that.
I was raised by a Mom who was super adamant about lightning storm behavior, as she had had a house struck by lightning, and had lived in high lightning areas. But as it never happened to us, I stopped worrying.
The biggest lightning storms I've ever seen regularly were in the New Mexico Rockies. Huge storms every afternoon in the summer. Much bigger than here. Another reason I haven't feared these smallish storms.
I remember coming to the island on vacation something like two days after the big storm of 2000. Driving the washed out road to Volcano (driving the detour). Our B&B hosts had a friend in Hilo who saw his neighbor's house float right off the pier blocks, dragging the electric wires behind it.
"And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody, outside of a small circle of friends ~ Phil Ochs
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http://www.nfpa.org/catalog/product.asp?pid=78011&order_src=B484
npfa 780 the standard for lightning protection - well worth the 40$ if one is doing the work - or just want the facts
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I have to agree with TomK's friend. I realize it's strictly anecdotal, but after living here on the Big Island since the early 1970s that's the same conclusion I've come to. Until the past 10-15 years lightning storms seemed to be rare occurrences here.
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quote:
The biggest lightning storms I've ever seen regularly were in the New Mexico Rockies. Huge storms every afternoon in the summer. Much bigger than here. Another reason I haven't feared these smallish storms.
I've experienced those storms and the lightning is gobsmacking. Those storms are indeed much larger than here. On the other hand, I've not experienced the amount of lightning that we get here, or at least where I live. The storm over Kaloli Point in 2003/3004 only lasted 30 minutes or so but there were lightning strikes every 10 seconds or so. I wanted to leave my house because I was scared but was even more scared to get to my car because it meant going outside. Instead I decided to sit down in the the middle of my house because that would mean I'd have less of a chance of being struck.
My house was struck by lightning three times that night. The telephone line vaporized (the handsets survived vaporization) and the TV antenna was scorched. I had an amplifier on the antenna line that took the full brunt of the strike and I think saved most of my electronics.
It turned out that all my expensive electronic stuff survived but all the cheap stuff died. My radio alarm would only give the correct time between noon and 1pm every day. My TV screen was a green/orange color for months until it eventually recovered. My phone handsets were fried (literally) yet everything else survived.
Wish I took a picture of the phone line the day after. It was completely vaporized. The Verizon repair team (as it was back then) were astonished, they'd never seen anything like it. That phone line is what took out four palm trees because it was close to the fronds.
Since then I've lost another two palms due to lightning and think maybe I've pissed off the almighty in some way!
PS. The 2000 storm was a super-cell, so something very similar to those in the mid-west etc.
Tom
http://apacificview.blogspot.com/
