Most Powerful Forces on Earth: Lightning | Fatal Forecast | Free Documentary

Lightning. It’s one of nature’s most spectacular and potentially deadly displays. It is unpredictable, powerful, and strikes with unfathomable frequency. While natural disasters such as earthquakes and cyclones may claim more lives annually, the effects of lightning strikes can last a lifetime. While reduced lightning seems like a good way to mitigate its destructive forces, life on Earth would be severely threatened. Without any lightning at all, life would cease to exist. Advances in warning systems and tracking devices are helping scientists save lives, but they still aren’t one hundred percent foolproof. The best course of action still remains to be weather-aware and to head indoors when thunder roars.

For those of us who really miss those "Discovery Channel" style cable TV shows.

My grandpa was struck by lightning twice in his life. He was a rancher in Oklahoma. The first time he was taking a nap under a tree in a pasture and a storm rolled in while he was sleeping. The tree got struck and hit him. The second time a calf got separated from the herd during a storm. He was carrying the calf and he got hit by a side strike that jumped off of the fence he was walking next to. He survived both strikes, obviously, but had memory problems afterwards.

"Electrifying" is the word that comes to mind after watching this documentary. It reminds us of the sheer power and beauty of lightning while highlighting its potential dangers. Thanks for the awe-inspiring journey through the world of nature's electric marvel and the reminder to stay weather-aware.

Thunderstorms and lightning are fascinating. I remember a storm in 2008, I woke up one day in early June at 5:20 a.m. with sunshine and heard very intense, but quiet thunder. I was literally stuck to the bed because it was so warm and there was condensation on the frame of the window, as I live in northern Germany in a very flat area, I could see a black wall far in the distance. The air seemed to shimmer and vibrate every time there was thunder in the distance. It was all so bizarre, I had never experienced an early morning thunderstorm at 21c and such high humidity. My mother was in hospital and my father was already at work, I went downstairs and just entered the living room and the cat jumped past me at face height, at the same moment the dog jumped into my arms and half a second later a bolt of lightning cracked with a deafening noise in our garden, less than eight meters away. In bright sunshine. It took another 20 minutes for the thunderstorm to arrive and I've never experienced such an intense storm, it lasted almost two hours. I now live in an area where thunderstorms almost always pass to the north or south, which I think is a bit of a pity.

These are wonderful documentaries. Thank you for letting me happily geek out. 💗

I worked on a house that got a side-flash from a tree. It blew wires out of the walls, fried their backup generator, all after jumping from a tree nearby the house, to a gutter downspout, then to the house itself, a sliding door frame nearby, and then into the wires running under it, blew them right out of the floor underneath it. It was WILD

Chris Vagasky is an excellent ambassador for lightening science; articulate and thoughtful, his contribution to this film was noteworthy. I now have a much firmer grasp of the dynamics of all forms of lightening and am grateful for this insight.

I used to be excited about thunderstorms until there was a strike nearby, loudest thing I've ever heard, now my love for them comes with a side of nervousness.

I had my neighbors house get struck by lightning, it went right through the house down the middle of the master bedroom where they were sleeping and were unscathed, and the roof did catch on fire but was put out. I was scared of any thunder for probably 12 years after that and for some reason that fear turned to fascination when I saw ball lighting rising from a cloud while on a plane. Been obsessed with natural disasters/storms ever since then.

Another great documentary. Love this one.

I hiked up Half Dome in Yosemite…the storm came up fast & I headed down the metal cables & it started raining 1/2 way down…the granite was slippery like glass…I went down as fast as I could so I wouldn’t go the fast way down the 3000 ft drop on either side of me & was just at the bottom of the cables when the hair on my arms & head started sticking up & I swear my metal fillings started vibrating…then the lightning struck the top of Half Dome when I had just come off the cables…I got blown onto the ground & 2 hikers w/hiking poles went to the ground as well…I got up after a few minutes when I stopped shaking, vomited a few times & could finally stand up, shakily & couldn’t hear because of the ringing in my ears…I still couldn’t hear & my ears were ringing for the whole 17+ miles back…I ran almost the whole way back from the adrenaline & my ears still ring.

Thank u for this documentary I have learned so much about lightning.

Extrodinary Documentary. 👍 I learnt a great deal...

Walking on a path along the beach in south Boston I'm passing by a tree, looking right at it, at that moment s bolt hit the tree 5 feet from my face, my body recoiled drastically, I was blinded for a few seconds, just like a double barrel shotgun fired in my face, I said I'm sorry God and thank you God. 🙏

This year we had a lightning so strong that have been decades since the last time I felt one similar. It struck 2.5 seconds away (because that was time the thunder took to arrive) but it was massive. The ground shook for well over 20 seconds, very similar to a 3.5 earthquake, everything vibrated. Not even those that strike in the 1 second perimeter have that energy. I could only imagine how that powerful one would've feel if it hit the lightning rods across the street or at the teather behind my house.

One time i was trying to demo a panel at a remodel in a commercial strip mall and the door was locked that had the disconnect to turn the power off the panel and it was a 480 volt so i was being careful and had all the branch circuits removed and all the neutrals and grounds and took all the breakers out of the panel to where the only wire remaining was the #4 bare solid from the ground rod system outside. It was landed on a ground bar on the bottom of this can and it was super old they never make them like this anymore and the ground was coming in from the top of the can and it was thunderstorming outside and if you have ever seen a #4 bare solid wire its not exactly the easiest to bend and move around in a tight spot so i had my needle nose pliers on it trying to push down to remove it from the ground bar it was landed in when all the sudden a big explosion just blew up in my face. My hand looked like it was cooked in a pizza oven. All of the hair on my body was standing up and had that static feeling across it and my hand was in so much pain and i couldnt understand what happened i was extremely careful and couldnt remember fn up at any point then we saw other people coming out of the active stores in the strip mall and they said lightning struck right outside the building and their panel had made a huge bang and thats when i realized i got hit by lightning right in my face. Eyebrows still dont dont grow right and my hair has been grey since i was 28 years old.

At about 8 minutes, my guess about what happened to the reporter is that a high current was induced in the shaft of his umbrella which travelled through his arm to his feet and the wet concrete he was standing on. I have seen a neon connected between a small whip antenna on my garage roof and ground flash when nearby strikes occurred - and most were cloud-to-cloud. If I ever travel overseas again, Lake Maracaibo is top of my bucket list of places to visit. Speaking of travel, A plane trip I took to America in 2001 (several months before 9/11) gave me a 35,000 foot view of a lightning storm which occurred at night somewhere over the Pacific ocean. I was lucky enough to get a once-in-a-lifetime glimpse of a sprite above the distant cloud. A momentary red bubble in the upper atmosphere with a bluish tinge at the bottom; it lasted only a fraction of a second. My window seat paid big dividends.

I experienced the worst lightning and thunder at a ranch in Buenos Aires, Argentina. the windows close to shattering, house shook, and you had to cover your ears the thunder was so loud, like a bomb. It was terrifying and amazing at the same time.

6 million lightning strikes a day, that’s crazy.