St. Elmo's fire on water near Amsterdam, Holland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo%27s_fire

St. Elmo's fire (also St. Elmo's light[1]) is an electrical weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a coronal discharge originating from a grounded object in an atmospheric electric field (such as those generated by thunderstorms or thunderstorms created by a volcanic explosion).

St. Elmo's fire is named after St. Erasmus of Formiae (also called St. Elmo, the Italian name for St. Erasmus), the patron saint of sailors. The phenomenon sometimes appeared on ships at sea during thunderstorms and was regarded by sailors with religious awe for its glowing ball of light, accounting for the name.

Ball lightning is often erroneously identified as St. Elmo's fire. They are separate and distinct meteorological phenomena.[2]

Observation

Physically, St. Elmo's fire is a bright blue or violet glow, appearing like fire in some circumstances, from tall, sharply pointed structures such as lightning rods, masts, spires and chimneys, and on aircraft wings. St. Elmo's fire can also appear on leaves, grass, and even at the tips of cattle horns.[3] Often accompanying the glow is a distinct hissing or buzzing sound.

In 1750, Michael Dedman hypothesized that a pointed iron rod during a lightning storm would light up at the tip, similar in appearance to St. Elmo's fire.[4][5]
[edit] Scientific explanation

Although referred to as "fire", St. Elmo's fire is, in fact, plasma. The electric field around the object in question causes ionization of the air molecules, producing a faint glow easily visible in low-light conditions. Approximately 100--3000 kV per meter is required to induce St. Elmo's fire; however, this number is greatly dependent on the geometry of the object in question. Sharp points tend to require lower voltage levels to produce the same result because electric fields are more concentrated in areas of high curvature, thus discharges are more intense at the end of pointed objects.

St. Elmo's fire and normal sparks both can appear when high electrical voltage affects a gas. St. Elmo's fire is seen during thunderstorms when the ground below the storm is electrically charged, and there is high voltage in the air between the cloud and the ground. The voltage tears apart the air molecules and the gas begins to glow.

The nitrogen and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere causes St. Elmo's fire to fluoresce with blue or violet light; this is similar to the mechanism that causes neon lights to glow.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• St. Elmo's Fire
• lightning

[vk45de]

Now that looks real. Surprised there aren't more views.

[oswaldo6966]

@vk45de that is real, I only had shitty mobile phone camera, so the quality is very poor... :/ I don't think u can see these st.Elmo's fires so often on water, so maybe that explains the lack of other videos...

[juliusjasa]

@oswaldo6966 Really cool video! But it is not St. Elmo's fire but rather a sort of glow in the dark plankton called Noctiluca scintillans @ wikipedia

You can see the glow brightest at crest of the wave beacuse these plankton emit light when they are hit.

[Csight]

This isn't St. Elmo's fire, this is bioluminesencing bacteria in the water.

[Mendoza1141981]

St. Elmo's Fire or bioluminescent bacteria; either way it's wicked cool!

[creativeinventor]

Chuck Norris farting

[lovemynation247]

@oswaldo6966 That is not st elmos fire. That is from biolumininescent plankton. Ships screws can also turn this up at sea or often times the churning of surf. We get this all the time on the california coast.

[Stillwater900]

Thats not St. Elmo's Fire, its bioluminscent bacteria

[xXGreenLegendRanXx]

I think I heard a turkey gobbling towards the end of the video..now I am hungry for some turkey day dinner!

[goinghomesomeday1]

This looks like the wash from the bulbus.

[FascistFemale]

This isn't St. Elmo's fire, but is still neat.

[rawimpact]

was this recorded with a pea?

[SynForce]

you can only see elmo's fire when it's in friction with certain material. as in a plane with the speed and material components on the outer layer of the plane it'll lit up quite a bit. but on water? i don't see how volcanic ash going over water can give a blue light effect

[robinkok]

at least we finally have a video that looks remotely like St Elmo's, rather than just static