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Spectacular summer thunderstorm

24-08-2006

A spectacular summer thunderstorm occurred on the 13 July at about 7pm.

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Summer thunderstorm. On the 13 July at about 7pm it was raining heavily. The ESRF user Jonathan Howse was on his way to the canteen for dinner. The scientist, from the University of Sheffield, happened to have his camera with him. By chance, one frame from the 30 second long film he took that evening captured the image above. The only post "processing" was to slightly darken the image, as the lightning was extremely bright. Charles Niclas was the operator on duty in the control room at the time. His report notes ‘big storm’, followed by ‘site struck by lightning – beam lost’. Despite the spectacular image, the strike didn't cause any damage. Meteorage is a website that provides lightning strike statistics. They report more strikes in July 2006 (370.000 strikes) than any of the preceding months for this year. In addition, the number of strikes during the first seven months of 2006 has already exceeded the total for 2005.