Talk:Heat lightning

Dry lightning

Is dry lightning the same thing as heat lightning? It would seem to me they kind of share some things in common (both misnomers) but heat lightning refers to lightning without sound (and possibly rain) whereas dry lightning refers to lightning without rain, but maybe with sound? Anyone? Since they are both misnomers perhaps it would be innacurate to say they are the same thing, but maybe linking the articles or combining them might not be a bad idea? MDuchek 01:41, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is the whole story, sometime in the summer you can ear powerful thunder and there's not a cloud in the sky (there probably was lightning but with clouds to reflect the light and darken the skies to provide contrast it probably got "drowned out" by the sun's light)72.0.194.94 (talk) 03:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, both of the articles are small. Anyways, in the meantime, I've added links to each other. I'd like to see both of these articles combined, or at least expanded to make more clear distinctions. I'm not going to do anything now, because I really don't have any facts. Sporlo (talk) 01:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Dry lightning and heat lightning are similar but different. Dry lightning is directly associated with low precipitation thunderstorms in the Western US. The storms produce rain but most or all of the rain evaporates before reaching the ground, dry lightning refers to the lack of rain produced by the storm. Heat lightning is usually associated with summer evenings and nights when many people are outside enjoying warm summer temps. Light travels much more than the sounds of thunder due to many factors, temps, air density, topography, etc... Also most heat lightning is from cloud-cloud or sheet lighting higher up in the clouds. Heat lightning occurs miles away from the storms so viewers experience no precipitation or other attributes of the storms.Bhockey10 (talk) 08:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

How is heat lightning a misnomer? It mostly occurs during warm conditions; I suppose it could be a misnomer if it occurs when it's cold. However, it sounds like the "lightning" part of it is what's being called a misnomer. Lightning and thunder are two separate things (albeit usually linked). Heat lightning is lightning. It would be a misnomer if it was called heat thunder, or if a loud booming sound with out a flash of light was called heat lightning192.104.39.2 (talk) 21:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Its a misnomer in the sense that most users of the word believe that the lightning is caused by the summer heat, not a distant thunderstorm. Consuelo D'Guiche (talk) 14:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

"most users" believe that? I'd need supporting evidence for the quantification "most". I'd opine rather that they simply use the term without any particular regard to mechanism.

"Heat Lightning" is given as a subtopic in a scientific paper on Lightning.

"Introduction to Lightning" Technical Report. Nixon A. Adams, 1971

"Heat Lightning"

"This is a general brightening of a cloud or group of clouds caused by either an intra cloud flash or reflection by these clouds of the light from other lightning types The clouds are so far from the observer however that he cannot hear the associated thunder." p224

The writer doesn't appear to need to debunk any purported misconception, neither there, nor elsewhere in the document. And to be reasonable, there isn't a sufficient misconception to debunk, inasmuch as the underlying engine of almost all lightning is some kind of meteorological heat (strictly speaking, temperature) differential. JohndanR (talk) 14:35, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I am thinking this article should be deleted, as most of this article's contents should be discussed in Lightning. There is not enough factual supportive information for there to be a Wiki-article...it would just be a stub(see following). —Will research for food (talk) 19:24, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree it should be deleted. JohndanR (talk) 14:37, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Aside from being a misnomer, the article contains very inaccurate information. "Under optimum conditions" a 50,000 foot cell can be seen for at least 200 miles. Very intense thunderstorms can be seen as far as 300 miles away. This is quite common on the Great Plains states. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eoanthropus Dawsoni (talk • contribs) 05:18, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It isn't a "misnomer" any more than "sun-dog", "sun-shower", "ball-lightning", etc. are misnomers. They are simply labels that have been pasted on phenomena so that people can have a brief linguistic handle on them to work with. A sundog is not a "dog", "sun-showers" are not rain caused by the openly visible sunshine, and "ball-lightning" contains no ball.

The whole article is a waste of oxygen (=not really 'oxygen') and should be deleted. JohndanR (talk) 14:43, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

The article should read:

Heat lightning is a misnomer, see Lightning.

—Will research for food (talk) 19:17, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Removed claim

I removed this claim from the article:

There is evidence that suggests some cases of heat lightning are, in fact, slow, diffuse discharges of electricity.

It has been tagged as needing a citation since November 2011, and it seems to contradict the referenced assertions that heat lightning is simply far-away lightning. -- Beland (talk) 00:38, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

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Physics involved

   I butchered, or rather pitched into the trash, rotten notions about the value of object-oriented pseudo-analogies having any value in explaining these wave phenomena. Aristotelians were crucial in the advance of science, but they didn't know shit from shinola most of the time.
--JerzyA (talk) 21:22, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Relevance of Florida?

I added some references which discuss Florida's relevance as "the lightning capital of the US", but I can't find any references to confirm the following claim: "[In Florida] heat lightning is often seen over the water at night, the remnants of storms that formed during the day along a sea breeze front coming in from the opposite coast."

I've left that claim in for now, but unless Florida is particularly well-known for heat lightning then I think this might be irrelevant information. I'm not from the US so there may be general knowledge to back up this assertion, however, it would be nice if we could add a link to make the link between Florida and heat lightning clear. At the moment, this seems like an addition that isn't particularly noteworthy to anyone outside of the United States (and Florida in particular).

-- A niche kale geek (talk) 13:33, 15 December 2021 (UTC)