Colorado -- Description and travel; Natural history -- West (U.S.); Rocky Mountains
Seventy storms I have experienced on the summit of this peak, and
during these it was struck but three times to my knowledge. One of
these strokes fell a thousand feet below the top; two struck the same
spot on the edge of the summit. The rock struck was granite, and the
effects of the strokes were similar; hundreds of pounds of shattered
rock fragments were flung horizontally afar. Out of scores of
experiences in rain-drenched passes I have record of but two
thunderbolts. Both of these were heavy. In all these instances the
thunderbolt descended at a time when the storm-cloud was a few hundred
feet above the place struck.
During the greater number of high-altitude storms the cloud is in
contact with the surface or but little removed from it. Never have I
known the lightning to strike when the clouds were close to the
surface or touching it. It is, however, common, during times of
low-dragging clouds, for the surface air to be heavily charged with
electrical fluid. This often is accompanied with strange effects.
Prominent among these is a low pulsating hum or an intermittent
_buz-z-z-z_, with now and then a sharp _zit-zit!_ Sometimes
accompanying, at other times only briefly breaking in, are subdued
camp-fire cracklings and roarings. Falling snowflakes, during these
times, are occasionally briefly luminous, like fireflies, the instant
they touch the earth. Hair-pulling is the commonest effect that people
experience in these sizzling electrical storms. There is a
straightening of the hairs and apparently a sharp pull upon each. As
John Muir has it, "You are sure to be lost in wonder and praise and
every hair of your head will stand up and hum and sing like an
enthusiastic congregation." Most people take very gravely their first
experience of this kind; especially when accompanied, as it often is,
with apparent near-by bee-buzzings and a purplish roll or halo around
the head. During these times a sudden finger movement will produce a
crackling snap or spark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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