The Fire of St. Elmo
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Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook.

St. Elmo's Fire is an electric glow that at times surrounds tall pointed objects when thunderstorms are near. It has long been a sailors' omen of heavenly intervention because it occurs during stormy conditions and, to a ship's crew, the ghostly glow symbolized the guiding hand of St. Elmo, their patron saint.

St. Elmo's Fire is described in the journals of the early sea explorers Columbus and Magellan, in the tales of Shakespeare and Melville, and in the HMS Beagle notes of Charles Darwin.

Physical descriptions of the Fire range from a dancing flame to natural fireworks, usually with a blue or bluish-white color. The flame is heatless and non-consuming, lasting a minute or less. Occasionally, it's accompanied by a hissing sound, which has created stories of a spiritual presence. In my experience, aside a weather tower on Mount Washington, the buzzing sound created not the feeling of a spiritual presence, but the inducement of my physical presence to beat a retreat to indoor safety, just as the sky exploded with lightning, only inches - it seemed - from my head.

Lightning rod, tall church spires, metal weather vanes, as well as mountaintop weather stations, bring St Elmo's Fire inland. In the thundery weather of the North American continent, it has inspired tales of ghosts and spirits haunting a stormy night. The Fire may also appear along the wing tips, propellers, and antennae of aircraft, but it is of little danger to the passengers, encircled in the plane's protective skin.

Thanks today go to Keith Heidorn, Sean Doucette, and Of course St. Elmo. Support for The Weather Notebook comes from Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive.