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Lightning crashes: Watch out for the flash before the bolt

The flash: Not a comic book super hero, but a rare glimpse at a lightning phenomenon called a ground streamer.

A Corner Brook woman caught the flash — which actually occurs during almost every strike — this weekend during a Corner Brook rainstorm that knocked out electricity.

In Angela Peddle's video of her neighbour's house across the back garden, there's a quick flash in the yard, a bolt of lightning behind the house, and then the power goes out.

During a lightning storm, ice particles bump into each other in updrafts of towering clouds, building up a charge, with a negative charge building near the base of the cloud.

On the the surface, a positive charge builds beneath the storm, with the atmosphere acting as an insulator. Eventually the clouds discharge their electricity: that's lightning.

In the blink of an eye from the clouds comes series of negative leaders looking to connect with the positive charge on the surface, while positive ground streamers reach towards the sky looking to the same.

The purple flash in front of the house is one of those ground streamers that, fortunately for the woman filming, didn't connect; the lightning struck somewhere behind the house with a ground streamer that did.

Lightning will usually strike a larger, taller object, but the purple flash is a good reminder of why you're not completely safe during a lightning storm unless you're inside.