Summer Storm Ignites Light Show Above William Annin
Resident Nick Falduto takes photos of strange summer light show at end of 4th of July, that flares up around midnight.
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A summer lightening event, which started around midnight at the end of the Fourth of July, lit up the skies by the trees above the William Annin Middle School on Quincy Road in Basking Ridge. Local photographer Nick Falduto captured some of the flashes, which at times were bright enough to resemble a nuclear explosion or a second sun, he said.
Nick Falduto
Photos (8)
Photos
Apparently a light show — free and naturally occurring — took place in the heart of Basking Ridge right at the end of Wednesday's July 4 holiday, between about 11:30 p.m. until about 2 a.m. on Thursday, and resident Nick Falduto snapped some shots.
His viewpoint was from a spot overlooking the trees near the William Annin Middle School on Quincy Road, he said.
"It was around midnight where there were huge flashes! It was like a nuclear explosion or missiles exploding in the air. Some got so bright it looked like a second sun," Falduto noted.
Other lightening/thunder events are likely to continue with the National Weather Service predicting steamy days with highs of 90 degrees or more to last through Sunday.
Sukie Crandall
10:49 am on Friday, July 6, 2012
We can see over the hill toward the south from our second floor condo in Spring Ridge so I got to watch that light show. In fact, many years I watch the fireworks themselves at that time of night when they go above the clouds but this year they were behind clouds. Although I don't know for sure I suspect the fireworks show that I wind up seeing that way almost every year is in Bridgewater though it might be a different show or even could be two shows.
At first this year I thought that it might be cloud to cloud lightning because the clouds made it look so strange, but, lo and behold, there was no thunder at the start and also none later. Thunder happens from the rapid expansion of the air from the heating so it occurs with cloud to cloud lightning just as it does with ground strikes. When the edges of the clouds were lit it sometimes looked like lightning from my vantage point when only a bit was lit and some of the rising fireworks also looked like darts of light, but other times the shapes were clearly the edges of clouds, and of course after the darts there consistently was sudden backlighting of the cloud formations.