Ben Franklin Slept Here

Every schoolkid is taught that lightning is simply a discharge of potential electric energy, positive meeting negative between clouds and earth. The juice is generated in conditions unique to the upper reaches of the thunderheads themselves, which billow as high as 10 miles into the atmosphere. Low temperatures and violent winds conspire to mash microscopic ice crystals one against the other, shucking electrons, building a charge differential. The positively charged crystals gravitate to the top of the cirrus anvil, and negative crystals to the bottom, where they occasionally, violently, discharge to the ground.


But fewer people realize what is happening simultaneously on the ground, where masses of positively charged ions are flowing in from all directions, drawn to the negatively charged mothership above. To get closer, these particles climb whatever is handy—trees, steel poles, people. It’s this movement of billions of positive ions up your head that causes your hair to stand on end just before a lightning strike. Well . . . that and the riveting fear.




In the distance, the storm clouds are like an advancing army of purple airships. I wrap a blanket around myself and start to walk into the field, between the poles, as a lasso of electricity flashes from one side of the heavens to the other. I’m not certain whether this is protocol, or safe, and without the protection of the cabin, I feel naked, exposed on all sides. Especially up. The lighting is now a Close Encounters light show, which makes it easy to forget to breathe. Steady pulses of heat and light burn toward the earth, hitting it, bang, and again, bang-bang, the electricity cutting the air over and over. The wind grows stronger, my ears are warm, the hair on my neck is standing up. I’m thinking of the science, the ionization, the cirrus anvil. But mostly I’m thinking: holy s—.


The storm gallops along the plain until what were electric saplings of distant lightning bolts are now thick trunks striking the desert beyond the poles, bang, bang-bang, filling the air with spasms of 50,000-degree air. This is an intimate weather moment, and I’m duly self-conscious. I find myself thinking about the metal in my watch, about my height, the fillings in my teeth. I think about standing on one leg, the way old-time electricians used to when testing new powerplants, to keep the voltage differential from crossing from leg to leg and frying their wedding tackle. And then I think about going back inside, to the cabin.


My new companions and I watch the show all night as it slowly approaches, rages, then sweeps back into the desert and behind the hills. It’s dark then, and quiet. Then the moon rises, full and close, followed by a seamless desert of pinprick stars, each a burst of light from a place we’ve never seen—a stream of ancient wave energy, beautiful and, apparently, quite real.


WEATHER VEINS
Looking for a hair-raising experience? Don’t know enough to get in out of the rain? Read on.


Electrical storms
The Lightning Field, Quemado, NM
A night of cabin camping amid nature’s light show. May?October; $110 ($135 in July and August); lightningfield.org


Tornadoes
Storm Chasing Adventure Tours
Five- and 10-day tours through America’s Tornado Alley between April and July. $1,700?$2,900; stormchasing.com


Hurricanes
Hurricane Chase Safaris
Tag along with weather videographer Richard Horodner. $2,500;
hurricanevideo.citymax.com