Rocket Lightning

Abstract

MR. J. EWEN DAVIDSON (98 Banbury Road, Oxford) has directed my attention to his letter in NATURE, vol. xlvii. p. 582, describing auroral appearances associated with a thunderstorm witnessed by him in Queensland, of which he was reminded by the letters headed “Rocket Lightning” in your issue of October 22, p. 599. Comparison of the two accounts is interesting, but the phenomena appear to me not to have been identical. Mr. Davidson says what struck him most in the recent account was the description of a misty cloud above the low bank of thick cloud. In his own case there was a very thin misty condensation over the thunderstorm, extending to an altitude of 40° or 45°, and “the rosy light phenomenon and the streamers only shot up to the upper edge of this misty condensation.” He says, “I did not mention the misty condensation in my letter to NATURE, as I did not then connect the two, but thought it was a mere coincidence, the one slightly veiling the other; but that there is a connection is now evident.” “Both observers were practically looking upon the upper edge of a thunderstorm at a distance, and in both cases there was the misty appearance above it, with the comparatively slow upward moving light phenomena.”