Heat Lightning… Real or Fake?

By Tim Tender on September 9th, 2007 at 12:44 AM

I already knew about it, but did a little digging tonight to find the best way to describe the term ‘heat lightning.’ Like normal, my first and only stop was Professor Jeff Haby’s website The Weather Prediction. Heat lightning is REAL LIGHTNING! The best way to describe it is lightning without the thunder. When you see heat lightning, that means that there are storms somewhere close.

Take tonight for example… My director and I were standing outside and we saw lightning east of our studios in Johnstown. The problem was that there was no thunder. We figured out that there had to be thunderstorms somewhere between Altoona and Bedford. I came in and checked the radar and sure enough, there was a cell between Altoona and Bedford. You can see the cell on a screenshot of our Early Warning Doppler 6.

BOTTOM LINE: Heat Lightning is real lightning but because of the distance from the storm, you can’t hear the thunder!