Lightning strike causes fireball to erupt alongside South Carolina commuters after hitting electrical transformer
Dramatic dashcam video caught the moment a bolt of lightning struck an electric pole in South Carolina, causing a transformer to explode — shooting a fireball into the sky beside oncoming traffic.
An officer with the Mount Pleasant Police Department was cruising along Highway 17 while other drivers were sitting in traffic during their morning commute in a thunderstorm, footage shared to the department’s X account Monday shows.
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In the blink of an eye, a blinding bolt of lightning strikes an electric pole just off the left side of the road, with the surge of electricity so strong that it shorted out the streetlight off to the right side of the road.
Immediately after impact, a ball of fire shoots up into the gray sky.
The surge was so powerful that the street and traffic lights along the busy road also exploded, causing sparks and embers to float down onto commuter cars.
“A bit too much excitement for a Monday!” the department wrote in the post.
The incident occurred around 11 a.m., resulting in widespread power outages in the area and causing traffic delays.
There were no reports of injuries.
Several intersections of traffic needed to be directed by police for “roughly three hours” while workers fixed the power outage, police said.
South Carolina has seen an uptick in severe storms this summer.
Storms from late July into early August delivered nearly 100,000 lightning strikes over the course of that week, according to WPDE.
Two of those days alone saw nearly 30,000 strikes each day across the Palmetto State.
The surge in lightning strikes is attributed to a combination of unusually high moisture and very unstable air, the outlet reported.
These elements drive powerful updrafts that rise deep into the atmosphere, triggering the formation of ice.
South Carolina isn’t the only state that’s experienced some breathtaking lightning strikes this year, however.
In July, local photographer Max Guliani captured lightning striking One World Trade Center during torrential downpour.
He heard the storm brewing and positioned himself at his favorite spot for capturing nature’s fireworks — a Hudson River Park pier on Manhattan’s West Side.
He aimed his smartphone camera at the iconic 1,776-foot tower in the deluge, and caught a series of dramatic lightning strikes — including a direct hit on the antenna as sailboats bobbed and swayed in the storm-churned waters of the Hudson.
One World Trade Center is the tallest building in the US, experiencing 189 strikes between 2015 and 2020, according to AccuWeather.
The Willis Tower in Chicago is the top target for bolts from the blue, with about 250 strikes during the same period.
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