I quite like storms. Then it's nice to be inside, feel the house shaking and look how the windows are getting covered by snow. When we got that "four tails storm", I just needed to stay awake and see the storm. In the same night we got a power cut, and all the town got dark. It was somehow cool :) And then we saw it: Blue sharp light lightened the living room.
- What was that?!!!?
- It was a lightning.
- But we don't have lightning in Svalbard!
The conversation was as absurd as our conversation when we got awaken when our house was shaken:
- What is this?!!!?
- It's an earthquake.
- But we don't have this kind of earthquakes in Svalbard!
That was in 2008 when we woke suddenly up for 5,9 (written in many newspapers 6,2) Richters earthquake which had an epicentre in Storfjorden 140 km away from Longyearbyen.
But there were lightning - even couple of times in that night - even though I have always said it was totally idiotic to make a scene of a dramatic thunderstorm in the movie "When the light comes" (Når lyset kommer) which is telling a story in Svalbard.
I didn't knew that it could be possible to get lightning in the Arctic areas - and even middle of the winter! I'm not still sure if I should believe that I really saw lightning or should I prefer believe I saw a landing attempt of humanoids.
I was already wondering, if it is possible to experience thunderstorms so far up in the Arctic. Looks like it is possible, even in the midst of winter. Thanks for sharing your story.
ReplyDeleteGeorge
Thank you very much for sharing this story, it saved me a lot of research time.
ReplyDeleteI am moving to Svalbard soon and was planning to bring a lightning detector for a world wide open lightning detection system, but was wondering if there is lightning possible at all in the arctic region...