Strange Light Flashes and Stangely Behaving Electronics In Ohio/Michigan

At roughly 10:45 PM EST a huge flash of light lit the sky's of Northwest Ohio/Southeast Michigan. My friend was coming over to my house (and is still here). He was about 3 miles away from my house when the flash lit up the sky. It was 28 degrees out and was snowing huge flakes of wet snow. I had actually noticed the flash as well at the same time when I was inside my house. About 2 minutes after the flash his 2007 VW Bug started acting up. The car shut off out of no where. (1/2 a tank of gas) He tried to start the car but it just flashed all the lights crazy and the key was vibrating.. (not a normal turn over). He tried turn on the 4-ways but all the lights just flashed on and off in the car. Then after a few more minutes he eventually got the car started. After he got going he noticed the temp gauge changed to Celsius, the radio was set to different station (88.3 not the lowest station) and the clocks had reset.. the clock read 12:02. My 58 year old dad also saw the light as he was walking into the house... he didn't even mention it until I brought it up later.. he thought he was going crazy or something because it was one of the brightest flashes in the sky he had ever seen.

Basically.. I am posting this to see if anyone else had seen this and/or experienced any electrical abnormalities. Also.. I would like to know if someone can explain this as a normal occurrence or if this is something different.

I offer a possible explanation for what happened but it is just a guess by me. It sounds like it could have been a main transformer that blew out. It would create a great flash of light amplified by the snow and cloud cover. It could have also created a low level emp which might explain why electronics were going screwy.

Thank you for your awesome theory. It may have been.. I just watched some transformer explosions on youtube.. some of them look kinda similar to what we saw. It could be but, most of our power lines here are buried and it was clearly visible for at least a 3 mile radius probably much more.. it was very bright. Also.. we still have power and from what he could tell while coming in there were no outages. Anyone else got any input to back this up or offer another theory?

The nearest thing I can relate is the great blackout July '03? When the tree supposedly grounded out a 440 in sagamore hills that took out power to the continental us NE for 3 days. I was on vacation and tending to my backyard pool. At about 330 pm my radio blipped out. I saw a flash and was looking down at a chem strip I had just soaked for a reading. I swear to this day I could see the bones in my hand like an xray for a split moment. Went to store for ice and packed fridge and freezer and didn't lose a thing.
I remember being so pavlov'd I kept trying to flip light switches. Had my 8 inch refractor out those three nights to stargaze though. Only time in 20 yrs I could see unabated. Made coffee on gas grill. It was a trip.

another possibility is thundersnow, which is pretty much a thunderstorm with snow instead of rain...

One unique aspect of thundersnow is that the snowfall acts as an acoustic suppressor of the thunder. The thunder from a typical thunderstorm can be heard many kilometers away, while the thunder from thundersnow can usually only be heard within a two to three kilometer radius from the lightning. In the United States, March is their peak month of formation, and on average, only three events are reported per year.[1]

Thundersnow, while rare anywhere, is more common with lake effect snow in the Great Lakes area of the United States and Canada, the midwestern U.S., the Great Salt Lake, and has also been reported around Kanazawa and the Sea of Japan and even around Mount Everest during expeditions.
....
Thundersnow is reported throughout the Ohio Valley region in March of 2008.

en.wikipedia.org...

some thundersnow has been reported in your area at some point in the month. if you didn't hear any thunder after the flash, the strike could have been too far away from you.

*Edit - it looks like the latest reported thundersnow event in your area was on march 9, 2008. hopefully, we'll find out in the next few days if there was one confirmed during the day your experience took place.

[edit on 28-3-2008 by banyan]

alright, i just checked out a news website in toledo in northwest ohio and looked under the current weather conditions...


www.wtol.com...

[please note that since this news site updates its weather reports daily, this text will not be found on the website come tomorrow]

so according to a local news source, thundersnow was expected to occur at some places in your area. it's quite possible this is your explanation, but i have no idea why the car went to crazytown.

*Edit - changed external source to news source.

[edit on 28-3-2008 by banyan]

[edit on 28-3-2008 by banyan]

Funny you mention your friend drives a VW Bug. My wife owns one and it is absolutely the worst car I've ever had the displeasure of working on.

It used to do pretty much everything you mentioned on a daily basis *minus the lights in the sky) at completely random moments for months. Then one day it just stopped. But all the crazy electrical problems you were describing reminded me of the stupid car so I reread your post and holy moly whatta you know its the same damn car.

The problem is so similar to what you describe Im convinced thats what happened to your friend.

Take it for what its worth...

Thanks for the awesome info. It most likely was thundersnow. And maybe since the electronics in that car are already #ty it messed with it more than it would for other cars. We ended up getting about 5 inches of snow by the way..

I live in SE Michigan, and I can confirm that there was indeed flashes of lightning and thunder during last nights snow storm. We had rain turn to huge snowflakes and drop about 4-5 inches on us over night. We witnessed multiple strikes while driving to the corner store.

Even though your friends Volkswagon was acting strangely, more than likely it was coincidental.

I sounds like what happened was a typical snow unloading incident on a distribution line.
Distribution lines operate at 4kv to 33 kv with 12kv and 16 kv being most common.
(KV = 1000 volts)

During a snow storm ice and snow build up on the conductors and when it gets heavy enough it breaks off which causes the conductor to physically gallop up and down which unloads more snow as well as snow on the adjacent phases.

Many times the swinging conductors will slap together creating a short circuit between phases and the resulting arc will light up the night sky for quite a ways.

It takes time for the line to relay so the arc may be on as long as 1-2 seconds.

Think of it as being similar to lighting up a dimly lit welding shop when arc welding and an arc is struck.

The voltage is considerably higher on distribution lines so the resultant arc is much larger.

Many times folks think a transformer has failed, but most times it's a line problem.

I live in SE Michigan about 2 miles from the Ohio (Toledo) border and I saw that huge flash of light, too. Both my husband and I saw it and thought, wow that was bright! Then about 30 seconds later, we heard a loud boom of thunder. If I hadn't heard the thunder, I'd be wondering what the heck lit up the sky like that.

This is probably completely unrelated cause I am in Dallas, Texas. A few days ago all of my electronics went haywire in my house. I didn't see a flash but i sit in a dark room with computer screens everywhere. All of my computers went crazy and even my cellphone and portable electronics that were not connected to a power outlet went crazy. Only lasted for about 3 minutes and everything was running again. It was weird though.

virraszto:

Thanks for your post. Hmmm.. we didnt hear the thunder. Soo.. I guess that would mean what ever it was originated north of you about 30 miles. (sound takes a second to travel a mile right?) and it was just too far away for us to hear it maybe. That would mean that was a HUGE flash of lightning to be seen soo bright from 45 miles away. (I am about 15 miles from you I am assuming.) And then there would have had to been an Electro Magnetic Pulse generated that messed with the electricity of his car that arrived 2 minutes after the sound. Does anyone know if the emp would travel slower than sound waves? (My friend thought thought they travel at the same speed.) Then Ive got another question does lighting generate an EMP?? Or would it have to have been a transformer or something blowing up. But again.. that would have had to been a HUGE explosion to be seen from 45 miles away.

Mr. Toodles:

Very interesting.. one main thing that is common is that his car was acting screwy for about 3 min also. Also.. the fact that you said devices that weren't even plugged in went haywire mean that it definitely wasn't coming from your power lines.. (suggesting an emp type thing) Do you remember what day this happened? It happened over here on Thursday night.

[edit on 29-3-2008 by danman23]