On one of our 80 foot tall pine trees!
At around 3 PM today, we had a powerful thunderstorm roll through, most of the time these storms are a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing…
not today, we had a bolt hit one of the trees near the driveway, an 80 foot tall pine tree, aside from the tree, there was no other damage, no loss of electrical appliances, we didn’t even lose power (which is amazing, given the incompetence of Central Maine Power)
the bolt entered the top of the tree and basically exploded out the bottom, sending wood shrapnel and fragments everywhere, the bottom half of the tree basically was peeled open from the inside
amazing how much power a lightning bolt can pack, sure walloped that tree good 
(i guess i’ll have to rethink my habit of running around outside and waving a huge metal pole in the air, all while screaming “Mother Nature is a B***h!” during thunderstorms, won’t i then? 
)
When we lived in FL, we had an oak tree on the edge of our yard take a strike. Hunks of bark flew all over the place. It left blood red stains on our driveway.
Oh yeah, and it also scared the bedoobies outta me when it struck. That was one loud event!
No pictures of the aftermath?
Ask and ye shall receive! or…Jinx!
The phrase “holy crap!” certainly comes to mind. :eek:
I would like to be out in thunderstorms, but I realize that outside is not the best place during lightning storms. At least I don’t run around waving large metal poles. 
God, I’m so dense…I completely missed the picture link in the OP. I blame it on being out trimming trees in the 90’ heat today…doing it the old-fashioned way, without all this high-tech lightning…
When I was about 17, I was getting ready to go to work in a lightning storm. As I put the key into my truck, lightning struck within a quarter mile. I felt the surge go through the key, up my arm, and dissipate in my body. It hurt pretty bad, my arm was numb for 20 minutes, and it wasn’t even a direct strike!
…Aaaand another storm cel is rolling in, i can hear it rumbling away in the middle distance, lets hope it passes, we’re running out of trees for it to hit…
Once upon a time, we had pine trees in our back yard, including one right next to the house.
The first to go was that neighboring tree, its roots just clearing the edge of the roof to the “blind” side of the house (there were only two windows there, the frosted ones for the restroom). It got struck by lightning one stormy night and killed the television.
Next was a tree that was perilously close to the Florida room we had built a couple years after moving in–originally, we designed around it, but it was discovered that the roots were creeping under the foundation and it would be an issue in a storm, so we had it removed.
Third was the tree we lost in Charlie - poor thing was just about snapped in half by the wind.
The last we also removed during that hurricane season because we felt too nervous about having it in the backyard, and Mom was getting tired of cleaning pine needles out of the gutter/Florida room roof anyway.
I saw lightening strike a super large hemlock, about 3 foot in diameter. It started a small fire in the top, but the tree stayed beautiful until last year when the owner cut it down to spite a neighbor. The storm blew up a number of trees about half a block away. They were spectacular, in their destruction.
It’s a shame about your tree.
Heh, i’m now sitting in our sunroom, watching and hearing the storm as it rumbles and flashes, at least 60-70 percent of the lightning flashes are bright enough to illuminate the 50 acres of our Southeastern Maine fields like it’s daylight…
it’s kinda’ strange in a way, to be sitting in the middle of a thunderstorm, with a metal cased computer (Aluminum PowerBook G4), posting on the 'Net (i love AirPort wireless networking )
Whoa…there’s a good flash, lit up the field like mid-day…
…and according to the Weather.com doppler radar map, we still have at least one nasty lookming red patch to come…
Isn’t that something?!
Lightning got a pine tree in the next block a couple of months ago. It took the top half and weakened the rest. The property the tree is on is vacant so nobody did anything about the half of the tree that was left standing. It fell over a couple of days later, into the street. When the mayor went to clear it off the street, he saw a kid’s trike under the tree. Thankfully, no kid, just the trike.
You’re lucky.
When I was in college, lightning hit the pole outside of the trailer where a friend of mine lived. He lost pretty much every single piece of electronic gear he owned. Fortunately, he had insurance.
The insurance paid for everything, and he was left with a bunch of dead stuff. Being EE students, we got the bright idea that since the stuff wasn’t too badly damaged (after all, there was no visible damage at all from the outside) we could fix the stereo and basically have an almost free stereo system. So, we took the cover off, and found out that while there was no damage at all to the exterior, the inside was missing about the back third or so of the circuit board. The solder on the remaining bits of circuit board had all splattered against the inside of the case.
We did one of these :eek: and closed the case back up, then tossed the remains in the garbage.
Since then, I’ve been fairly impressed with the damage that lightning can do.
Many years later, I had an experience much like yours. I was standing inside the garage of my house with the garage door open, and lightning hit one of the trees in the woods opposite the road we lived on. That was the only time I’ve experienced lightning with no delay at all between the flash and the sound, and damn was it loud. It split the tree that it hit, but didn’t damage anything inside my house.
Wow! That’s amazing. I’m glad no one got hurt. Be safe!
During the wicked thunderstorm we had a couple of months ago, I came in here and unplugged my mac from the wall. I’ve got it on a fairly heavy-duty surge protector, but lightning is lightning, and the lightning was almost continuous in that storm. It was all flashboom flashboom flashboom.
Once I was caught out in the woods - - I’m a forester of sorts - - and could feel the minor shocks running through the ground prior to the SIZZLEFLASHBANG! of the lightning striking. This lasted at least five minutes as the main storm passed up the cove. Ugh. I’m now a real wuss about lightning and get inside promptly.
I’ve a slight nitpick. You lost a spruce or a fir, not a pine. I’m not good enough with northern trees to tell from your photographs alone as to which is which. Look at the needles. If they’re sharp and square, it’s spruce. If they’re flat, it’s fir.
I was standing by my parents’ living room window about ten years ago when lightning struck one of their pine trees, about twenty feet away from me. It was incredibly loud and bright, and I could feel the concussion in my sternum. The bolt didn’t explode the tree like yours, but it left a red streak down the entire tree and a pile of bark at the bottom. Over the next several months, the tree withered and died and had to be removed.
I’m glad nobody was hurt!
Really early one morning, it was pouring wet and pitch black outside, and I was getting up all sleepy-like to shut my window when lightning hit one of the trees just down our block.
Big burst of white light outside, along with what sounded like a big metal garbage truck dropped from a enormous height. I think I actually had to grab onto something at that point, my legs couldn’t hold me up.
Scary stuff.