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Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire!
text by karen blakeney
Talking about the weather constitutes small talk in most locales. The subtle references to warmth and drizzle and cool breezes slip into daily chatter with barely a blink of acknowledgement. In South Mississippi, however, we tend to take our weather conversations seriously. With our history of severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, and extreme heat, we have good reason to treat nightly weather reports with a reverence akin to presidential addresses.
With this in mind, I hesitate to speak of the most unusual weather phenomenon I’ve ever experienced. After all, weather is a science. There’s not much room for amateur talk that smacks of legends and eyewitness accounts that no one has managed to capture on film. Still, I’ll risk scrutiny and bare my soul. Besides, I’m not recounting a UFO sighting or claiming to have spotted Nessie. I’m just talking about weather!
It was a stormy day in 1987 in Gulfport’s Quail Ridge subdivision. I had just picked my infant son up from the living room floor when I heard a loud clap of thunder. At the same time, an amazing sight—what I can only describe as an electric tumbleweed—burst out of the fireplace and raced across our newly carpeted floor. It hit the opposite wall and disappeared instantly without leaving a hint of a scorch mark.
Startled and confused, I ran with my baby to the bedroom at the opposite end of the house and stayed there until I could stop shaking. When my husband arrived home from work, I described the phenomenon to him, but he had never heard of such a thing. Occasionally, I would get up the nerve to tell other people, wondering if anyone else could shed light on the bizarre occurrence, but no luck.
Several years later, I was skimming through Weather, from the Eyewitness Books Series, and lo and behold, there was a vintage illustration depicting an event from over 200 years ago. The caption beneath the photo read: “Throughout history, many people have reported seeing strange phenomenon called ball lightning. In 1773, just after a clap of thunder, two clergy-men saw a tiny, bright ball, no bigger than a football, glow in the fireplace, then burst with a bang. No one can explain these rare sightings.” Bingo! I could finally put a name to my experience.
The size of the ball lightning, in my case, was much larger, about the size of an exercise ball. And it was not a solid glow; it was wildly electric, like a fiery tangle of rolling vines. Also, it did not linger in the fireplace; it burst out at the sound of the thunderclap and rolled rapidly across the room. So there are some differences. I can, however, say with confidence that the lady with the baby in that sketch surely ran to the other side of the house and trembled like this South Mississippi fraidy-cat.
