St Stephen's Day - Double Lightning

Again no pictures, but Budapest certainly knows how to do a storm. Much like last year.

[OK, here's one, but it's not mine... the bolts I saw were slightly wigglier and more parallel. Click here to see the picture on its own page alongside numerous other nice lightning images.]

This year St Stephen's day, on which Hungarians celebrate King Steven (Szent Istvan, Istvan Kiraly) and the foundation of the Hungarian state fell on August 20th - just like last year; except this year it was a Monday.

Thus Monday was to be the great day for the Red Bull Air Race finals (which I didn't bother to go and see) and the fireworks along the Danube - which I was not going to miss, having been unable to watch them because of the great storm last year.

Because it is hot and humid, we were not unsurprised to see the sky growing black on the 19th, hoping that by the time the 20th came all stormery would be done. (It was - the fireworks were great!)

The storm of the 19th wasn't as devastating as last year's vihar, but from the comfort of the apartment window there was a good show of lightning - including "one" strike of a kind I have never seen before.

I saw a double-strike directly in front of me: two almost but not perfectly straight bolts whose tracks - at arms length they were about a thumb's width apart and I could see about a hand-span of the path above the roof opposite - paralleled each other on the way down.. including the small wiggles that there were.

How can one have two simultaneous bolts in virtually the same place following the same shape of path?

Another item for the Cabinet of Curious Stuff.