Stormfly

23 hours ago, AdamHLG said:

 

It's ironic because as he and I were talking a cable tv guy in a bucket truck no less, there to inspect and report, was walking right over the downed lines and pole and he warned him that the lines could energize at any second due to generator back feed or a tree falling down the line that can drop another line onto the dead circuit.  The response was "oh - I got you man.  Thanks".  SMH.  I think most lay people know this.  That guy should have known better.   

       

You would be surprised at the number of folks that "should know better"  that don't.  They ASSume if there is no smoke, buzzing, sparking, etc. that everything is safe.  Same kind of folks you never trust handing an "unloaded" firearm to you as well.  If something can kill, it will without any warning at any time.  Always presume the worst can happen and you live to do the next job, generally speaking.

These last few days would not be fun at all if the temp was in the upper 90s with 80 DP, say like we had this time in July 1995.  Anyone remember that heatwave?

I was in Belair MD getting an inspection wrapped up.  Knew it was coming and it came fast!

Captured this

Short video before rain/hail chased us to cover:
 

At home near sunset, we noticed very much fire in the sky!  Not just your normal reddish/orange glow but everything had the appearance of being viewed with a pink salmon filter!

Red sky sailor's delight, yeah right!  (As long as said sailor is equipped with a 32kW Northern Lights EDG!)

Our power was out for about 8 hours which was a true blessing as I know some that just got restored early this AM and there are still folks without power.

I'm taking a long needed break. (finally)

2 hours ago, AdamHLG said:

Well at least I got that going for me.  You can't lose power if you still have no power. :--(  

No but it has a good chance to push your restoration time back even further.

What a mess this has been, have not seen this sort of disruption in services and damage since Irene/Derecho/Sandy.

34 minutes ago, North Balti Zen said:

meh. 

Nothingburger stands are bigger than firework stands here in northern MD!

1 hour ago, WxWatcher007 said:

It’s my birthday! Now shower me with praise and wishes of successfully chasing a strong category two hurricane with a tractor tire eye! 

Happy Birthday.

Unfortunately if you want legit severe, you definitely need to hit the road!

1 hour ago, Kay said:

dang, people are going *all out* with fireworks this year. sounds like a WWI movie here.

Same, I mean we always hear them but last night and especially tonight it was definitely reminding me of Beirut in 1983.

10 minutes ago, poolz1 said:

I hear ya and sounds reasonable. To be honest, the more I look at this thing the more I see myself getting the catapult into the neighbors yard! Lol. We have friends that have a tree removal business. I may leave this one to the professionals.

Yes that is a good idea.  Tree work is something you don't want to get involved with and realize the job was beyond your abilities!  Definitely the safe way to go.

2 hours ago, poolz1 said:

A pretty wild scene here yesterday.  Just under 2" but just a mile or two south had to be close to 4".

On the deck watching the creek rage and started hearing loud snaps.  Saw the top of a massive sycamore start to shake and called the family out.  Finally, a loud crack and we watched the tree crash.

Im pretty proficient with a chainsaw but the rootball on this tree makes me nervous. At some point it is going to want to stand back up and I sure as hell don't want to be standing beside the tree when that happens. The pic doesn't do justice. Rootball is about 20' wide and 12' tall.

 

 

That is best tackled by supporting the trunk to the left (only to make it easier for buck cuts) and cut near the base and let the root ball swing to the right of your kerf.  Make sure the ground has had time to dry up so you have good footing!

1 hour ago, RDM said:

Can believe it re the CRT's and can relate to their potential, through my dad and my own experiences.  He used to fix TV's p/t back in the 60's and 70's for a little extra cash.  Got bit a couple of times by the static charge in a tube.  

He built our first color TV in 68 so we could watch Apollo 11 launch in color in 69.  Will never forget it.  Was a Heathkit 25" color unit when 25" was as big as they came.  It had a cool mechanical remote that used small tuning forks to generate a semi-audible "ping" that controlled channel, volume, on/off, and color.  Was very cool at the time to have a remote control.  He was so proud of that TV.  Only a fraction of people in our area had a color TV in the late 60's.  By the mid 70's color was the norm.  

 

Heathkits were awesome!  Sad they went out of business.

1 hour ago, nw baltimore wx said:

Damn. Probably should be inside. Check out this feeler trying to get to us on the porch.

 

Great capture!

That would be a lens reflection.  You can make it that it mirrors the bolt and the predominately green wavelength depicted is indicative of remnants of the coating used.

I've seen these many times in videos and some even appear real as the sound in the video reveals a snapping noise.  However the snapping noise is from sideflashes occurring from nearby conductors that picked up enough potential from the nearby strike to arc over to conductive objects of lower potential.  Interestingly enough, energy from those sideflashes often find their way into sensitive electronic equipment often bypassing spike protection in the power supply usually due to alternate paths.

Bolts that long, that close are extremely sharp/loud similar to a centerfire rifle cartridge.  Running a Tesla coil at a "lowly" (in comparison) 50kW input with a secondary coil (magnifier), frequent D'Arsonval discharges were experienced that were about 15-20' long and were quite loud even with ear protection.

1 hour ago, RDM said:

Rgr on the GFIs - We have them religiously installed where called for and even in some other places as an extra precaution.  

Your observations about self tapping screws sounds like you may have lost some skin in the school of hard knocks.  When I lived in India and Thailand it was always interesting watching the locals test a 220vac wire to see if it was hot with the back of their hand.  If it was hot, they let out an "ouch" as their hand clamped tight, pulling their fingers away from the hot lead.  The practices in some other countries would put OSHA into convulsions here.  haha.  

Back in 2011 when we put on a second garage, we had to relocate about 200 feet of the underground service to our house.  Dug the trench, exposed the line at the mid-way point and then dug the lineman a hole for him to get easy assess to the lines.  He cut out the old line and spliced in the new cable with the 800amp service still hot.  I asked why he didn't lock out the service at the transformer and he said he hated messing around inside transformers.  He said "there's a lot going on in there"  (our transformer services 4 houses).  

He put on his lineman's chaps and long gloves and sat down in the hole and crimped/spiced everything without any apparent worry.  Out of respect, I kept my distance and didn't bother him with questions as he worked.  Just quietly watched him execute his trade.  He want trough a ton of self-splicing tape and several rolls of regular ole electrical tape.  Inserted the new meter on the riser, installed the seal and checked everything out.  Haven't had any issues yet - knock on wood.  

Working hot is fine if you have the necessary PPE and training.
Yes those screws have gotten me and I've got scars to prove it!

Believe it not the nastiest "bite" came from a CRT chassis.  AFTER the (picture) tube was discharged, it sat and built up enough charge that it got me and part of the housing sliced my arm open.  The charge wasn't even that strong, perhaps a few joules.  Element of surprise gets me every time.

13 hours ago, RDM said:

Interesting you mention losing one phase.  It reminded me that only one of the 2 phases on our neighbor's transformer went.  Don't recall how many kva the transformer was.  And, it didn't arc or shoot any blue flames.  haha.  Was fortunate for our neighbors in that the fuses did their thing and popped as designed.  Hats off for what you do.  Getting stung by 110vac is not pleasant.  No second chances with the level you deal with.  

When the transformer shorted to ground the fuse on the pole cutout opened with a report similar to a 12 gauge!  Hard fault.  That transformer was from the early 70s.

When there is a secondary fault the cutouts don't always open, the fuses hold and the transformer will supply well in excess of its kva rating.  This is why its paramount to call before digging!  Secondaries running from the transformer to the building service demarc are unfused and if shorted in excavation operations, for example, the results are pretty impressive.

110VAC can definitely kill.  This is why pool/spa/restroom wiring has GFCIs.  Touching a faulty appliance while another part of your body is touching water or otherwise well grounded can produce a lethal shock.  Then there are secondary injuries that can occur even when the equipment disconnect is open and fuses are removed!  Typically with HVAC rooftop units.  Reaching inside a chassis and coming in contact with a charged capacitor creates the surprise of the century and the resulting reaction of pulling a hand out pronto causing one's arm to come in contact with protruding self tapping chassis screws everywhere!  That'll open you up nice and the zap is a faint memory at that point when you need a dozen stitches or so.

Cone of silence!  Heard ONE, yes ONE rumble of thunder here.  All bark, no bite.
Before it blew in (haha) I had to snap the sky, it was MEAN looking!

YT video processing, will update with link but in the meantime...

Ok here's some video.  The original is HDR10 UHD and it will (eventually) work once processed but for now it's here:
 

Yeah the pioneer (corn) fields were flattened as far as the eye could see.

Baseball+ for us.  Roof damage (45 squares of dimensional shingles), ridge vents destroyed, 13 windows broken, gutters removed, attic ventilator looked like it was shot with buckshot, and aluminum siding in similar condition.

RV nearly totaled (back before the GRP siding days).  Car windscreens spider webbed.  Even our redwood picnic table had severe damage to its planks and a well build ducane propane grill top was dented in!  I saw the needle of my weatherhelm remote anemometer nearly pegged at 109 mph before retreating to the basement.  Quite scary TBH.

Whole lot of lightning to our west!

2 hours ago, RDM said:

 

Great info Stormfly.  Spot on re the arcs.  Transformer fires are rare, but when they do happen they can be quite spectacular.  The fuses normally do their thing and protect the transformer for obvious reasons.  

Had an interesting incident with a neighbor's ground level transformer adjoining our property 2 years ago.  Two houses on the same transformer lost power. VA Power responded, with what eventually became 5 trucks/crews.  They replaced the fuses and tried to "reset" things, and that didn't work.  Dunno how many fuses they burned up, but it was several.  After several hours of troubleshooting they said the transformer failed; with a very perplexing look of bewilderment.  The head of the crew said he'd only seen a couple of cases in his 30+ year career where a transformer actually failed on its own without any apparent reason.  

Bye coincidence or not, the failure was a couple days after the owner of one of the 2 houses put in a new wood fence, with a crew that used a power auger to make the post holes.  One of the posts was installed right over where the underground service runs from the transformer to their home.  We wondered if the auger may have nicked the line in a way it didn't electrocute the fence crew but somehow created a ground fault.  The lineman nodded with more bewilderment and said "that fence crew was very lucky".

They replaced the transformer and installed new fuses and got our neighbors online again w/o any further issue.  It was very interesting to watch the lineman install the new fuses with the long fiberglass pole, with the high-voltage feeds running to the transformer still hot and all of his buddies standing well away from him.  Things were quite serious at that moment.   

As a side-bar...  during the initial conversation with the lineman, he said "the service to your house is out too, right"  I said no.  He was convinced it had to be because according to his schematics we were supposed to be on the same faulty transformer as the other two houses.  I took him to the transformer where our service is from on the other side of our property and he just shook his head with a perplexing "well something is messed up here"...  He took pictures and measurements and told me he'd make sure they corrected the records for future reference.  That experience explained why we had such an issue with VA Power about 10 years ago when we had to relocate part of our underground service feed.  (That was a nightmare and VA Power wouldn't explain why...  too long of a story to repeat here)

I saw that happen in 1998.  50kVA pad mounted transformer.  When a phase went out BGE changed taps.  When the last one opened they had the knuckleboom dropping in a new one.  Ridge Gardens apartments.  That area got a lot of severe in the mid to late 90s.  So much tree damage and cleanup too.  Then the derecho comes through in '12 and makes about the same mess as that decade!  Severe action and tree work (specifically felling) have a lot in common.  Like a big party.  Everyone wants in on the action but the next day when it's time to clean up the mess no one wants to contribute.

Last time we saw excitement was the day before Isaias came through.  Feeder switch test failed and a 7.2kv feeder that runs between our parking pad and lane decided to shoot pink fire up into the air, full Dracarys mode!  Singed the grass, melted asphalt and nearly got my work truck.  Even in the pouring down rain of a thunderstorm I had to chase the flames with a big CO2 extinguisher 5 minutes after the power was cut.  Fun times!

Hail is the last thing I want.  Anything over mothball sized is absolutely unwelcome here!

Had a $60k claim on State Farm in 1980.  That's ~ $213k in today's dollars.

My lightning dets are going crazy right now, very energized cells to our west.

On 6/29/2022 at 10:02 PM, WxWatcher007 said:

An all-time event for the region. Just extraordinary.
 

 

Transformer explosions rarely happen.  The flashes visible are arc faults or simply power flashes where something comes in contact with lines or a line is on the ground arcing producing lots of light.  Pole mounted transformers are extremely robust, I've seen secondary faults burn through an entire pole and while the pole and transformer ended up on the ground, the transformer was still functional but damaged only from the fall!

In substations where larger transformers are used where 500kV may be stepped down to 33kV, for example, faults here are quite spectacular and if it goes up in flames its usually due to the oil heating up to the point where the internal pressure reaches limits and safety devices vent the oil which instantly vaporizes and ignites when it contacts something hot (like an arc).

Well known events involving substations include NYC:
 

Closer to home, there was an incident on 12/21/2012, the day the world was supposed to end.   Freaked a lot of folks out in the Annapolis area IIRC.

During strong winds at night when your lights start flickering, dimming or going out and come back on, listen carefully.  You may hear humming.  And if you go outside you may see that eerie looking glow.  In rural areas where overhead lines and trees are close together, this is commonplace.  It's also annoying when a limb large enough to not be cleared by reclosers trips them out and you have to wait for crews to clear the fault.

Compared to what it could be, yes I will definitely take it!

If we have a year without a summer, we'll probably have a year without a winter.

Aka mid 40s at night.  With rain.  Peepers by the creek (instead of sleigh bells)!

Red sky at night, sailor's delight!

It was very pleasant working pre-dusk in the meadows.  Had numerous fireflies land on me.  I let them crawl to the end of my fingers, point them skyward, they extend their wings and take off.  It's almost magical.

Just imagine if they took all the ethereum mining hardware and used BOINC clients on them for crunching that data what the throughput would be like!  DC (distributed computing) is crazy powerful but alas, greed always takes precedence.

1 hour ago, H2O said:

They allowed you to run the bases with a Walker?  That must have taken hours!

Run bases?  The John Shelby edition walker express allows you to steal them!

Nice thundershower, watered the garden with a bit over a third of an inch.

2 hours ago, H2O said:

Everyone wish @mappya very happy birthday today!!

She turns 85 today but is amazingly spry and full of energy. Especially for sleet. She loves sleet. 
 

Happy Birthday!!  Hope you get storms and 85 lightning strikes!!

You serious Clark?  I thought I was the oldest one here!

Happy Birthday Mappy!