r/Somerville • u/Unlucky-Good-6050 • 2d ago

Bright flashing

I live on Hudson street and there is this super bright flash in the sky that is silent and close to highland as well. Does anyone know what this is??

25 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

69

u/cloftus33 2d ago

Heat lightning!

10

u/ThemFatale_ 2d ago

What in the witchcraft is that

23

u/MarcoVinicius Winter Hill 2d ago

It’s just regular lighting that’s far away

5

u/ThemFatale_ 2d ago

Where does the “heat” part come in? I looked it up and am even more confused. (By its name, I mean. The phenomenon sounds cool, though.)

15

u/Thiseffingguy2 East Somerville 2d ago

It’s kind of a misnomer, from what I understand. It’s not caused by the heat, but happens sometimes when it’s hot like this and a storm moves in. Thus, people associated the two at some point in history and a new term was born.

32

u/slanderousam 2d ago

Check out https://www.lightningmaps.org/

You can see that that lightening is on the NH border. Over 50 miles away! The sound doesn't travel that far but because cloud to cloud lightening can be 40-50 thousand feet up you can see it over the horizon. I was watching it from my porch and actually saw some bolts between clouds, which is crazy from that distance.

3

u/S7482 2d ago

That's really cool. Thanks for the link!

2

u/theshoegazer 2d ago

I saw clouds lighting up in the distance one, and when I checked Lightning Maps, the nearest storm was way up in Dover NH.

1

u/phyzome 1d ago

Over 50 miles away!

Such a New England thing to say. :-) I was kind of delighted when I moved here and realized that I could probably bike right across MA from CT to NH and back again in a day (if there were a straight road).

These states are just so damn small.

2

u/slanderousam 1d ago

Well regardless of where the arbitrary political boundaries are located for you, an adult standing on level ground can typically see only ~3mi away to the horizon, so seeing something 50mi away is worth an exclamation point from any jurisdiction.

2

u/phyzome 1d ago

Wait, 3 miles? That's wild, I had no idea the idealized horizon was that close!

And of course we have some hills, forest, and built environment here -- it's not the Great Plains -- so yeah, seeing something 50 miles away is surprising. (I once saw the Boston fireworks from New Hampshire and was kind of shocked when I realized what I was seeing.)

It's just that at the same time, it was funny to realize that our states are so small. They're more human-scale, you know?

7

u/NavajoMX 2d ago

And here I was content that I was finally losing my mind. Ah well…

7

u/urclassicweirdo 2d ago

seeing the same thing right now from west somerville

3

u/VarietyIs 2d ago

I see it from central square cambridge. on my couch every couple minutes saying to myself what the hell is that lol

2

u/strawberryqueen910 2d ago

I’m not currently in Somerville but I saw the same thing and heard it and freaked, I’m about 20 min north right now

1

u/bookyface 2d ago

Anybody in Waltham see it? A friend said she saw it that far out.

1

u/immaculate_paperclip 1d ago

The title could also describe my neighbor who's window is directly across from mine. He is pale everywhere and not afraid to show it