Constantly Flashing Lightning Options

[WeatherMatrix (O...]

Speaking of experiences with lightning... I thought of one more. I had a strange one in June 2002. A number of storms came over WeatherMatrix HQ (State College, Geographical Center of Pennsylvania) one evening. The last one came around 10:30 pm or so. Most of the lightning was in-cloud or hidden by the clouds so it was more flashes than strokes I was seeing. I was watching (and videotaping) the lightning out the front door when something strange happened.

There was a strike, then a "fluttering" of flashes that changed from blue
to yellow and back to blue. The flashing continued, at varying brightnesses, for *25 seconds* then ended with another strike. This was
something that I had not seen before. It seemed like lightning hit
something electrical, but there were no power problems in the immediate
area. Then again transformer explosions are generally quick also. In fact I almost mistook some of them for lightning during hurricane Fran.

I didn't have a great view of this occurrence but a friend on the next hill
over said he saw the same thing. He couldn't believe it was 25 seconds so I brought him the video to prove it (the video showed it vaguely since it was to the north and I was videoing west). So now we both know it happened but we're not sure what it was.

Now, I have watched a fair share of lightning storms in my day and had
never seen anything like this, but I don't live in areas like Florida that
get a LOT of lightning or out west where you guys get the BIG storms. So I wanted to ask if any of you had ever seen lightning flash for that long or
had heard of such a thing. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't have it on
video.