Shocking Sites

Interesting websites I’m looking at today…

• NewJerseyWeather.com has a live lightning detection map for New Jersey that is updated every five minutes.
• Boltek makes the Storm Tracker and LD-250 lightning detectors, which are installed around the world. Here a country map is provided with the actual strikes per minute.
• Struckbylightning.org provides a quickly updated lightning incident data report.
• The National Weather Service has a myriad of games and other fun stuff for kids to play while learning about lightning safety.
• Scientists have aimed lasers at a thunderstorm for the first time in order to trigger the electrical precursors to lightning, according to a study.
• Michael Bath’s amazing lightning photography has a plethora of images and photo tips.

Links to sites outside A Flash of Light are not endorsements of their content.

Electric Discharge

The saying opposites attract is definitely true in some instances. Perhaps it’s the difference that sparks an instant attraction.  Sometimes the difference can create something exciting – like two diverse people beginning a new relationship and sometimes the difference produces a dangerous act of Mother Nature.

Lightning is quite simply the action of opposites attracting. According to The Franklin Institute, when positively charged energy and negatively charged energy are near each other, an electric discharge of energy travels between the opposites and produces lightning.

Labor of Love and a Nuisance

Perhaps the hardest part of dealing with grief is having to do it everyday. Everyday you are quickly reminded that yes, life is indeed short and yes, that person you once loved day in and day out is no longer here. My best friend, Lee Weisbrod, got struck by lightning and passed away on July 22, 2006, while fleeing a soccer field in Montvale, N.J.

While this blog was created for an online journalism class assignment, I am actually glad the assignment was given. People pick to deal with their grief in a myriad of ways. After the passing of my best friend, I found myself constantly engulfed in my writer’s notebook filling page upon page of personal prose, poems, and short stories. In addition, I began researching the phenomena of lightning and pleasantly found that North Jersey (specifically Bergen County) has begun not only lightning awareness initiatives but also has started installing lightning detection systems to thwart another tragedy.

This process will be both a labor of love and a nuisance for it will catalogue all of the good that has come out of this tragedy but it will also constantly bring forth memories of emotional and difficult times.

All in all – it will be a positive experience for me. Whether I further heal or learn more about something that has affected me on so multiple levels.