Holy smokes.
This might be one of the closest-to-lightning videos I’ve ever seen, and it is certainly the first time I’ve seen a boat get struck by lightning. I don’t know what the odds are of getting a video like this, but it seems like the person behind the camera got pretty lucky being able to catch this on camera (unless that is their sail boat).
The video begins showing a marina going through some stormy weather, with some boats next to the dock’s walkway. It appears that all of the boats had come back in because of the bad weather, but it turns out that the bad weather was going to find them regardless.
Out of the dozens of boats in the frame of the video, it is the sail boat’s unlucky day. The CDC (not sure why they have a number on this) says that chances of getting struck by lightning is “less than one in a million,” but try telling that to this sailboat. Or, better yet, the sail boat’s owner.
It is unclear whether or not a certain piece of the floating sail boat attracted the lightning strike, but it is crystal clear that this powerful lightning strike absolutely decimates this boat. It almost appears that the boat is split in half by the strike, but besides the small flames that come up from the sail boat, it looks like it manages to stay in one piece.
However, if the flames have in fact started up, someone better get to that boat ASAP because it would be quite ironic for a vessel floating on water to burn down.
The short video shows why Mother Nature is undefeated, and the caption nails it with their description of the shocking weather event:
“The weather on our little world can be terrifying. The sheer power.”
If you happened to hear the sound that the strike makes, does it not sound like it starts just before the lightning hits the boat? I was always told that if you count in seconds from the time you see lightning to the time you hear the thunder, the number you get to equates to how many miles the strike was away.
Not sure if that holds any scientific credibility, but that theory makes a little sense considering the sound in this video almost gave you a heads up that the strike is coming.
I would also suggest slowly scrolling through the video because the frame by frame of the video shows just how forceful the lightning strike was.
Just like the Twitter account the video was posted on, all I can really say is… “wow, terrifying.”
