I found this in the Google Archives for this group. Questions/comments
throughout post


One afternoon, many years ago, we were haying on a farm in Maine
when a thunderstorm approached. We all retreated to the house to
wait
out the rain and storm.

As was the practice in those days, the lady of the house had
"backed out" all the fuses to break any indoor paths should a
lightning
strike occur on the power lines.


Hmmm, I wonder how effective something like this would be for
a bolt that just traveled through miles of air, which is a very good
insulator. Transformer blow outs, maybe, but an extra 1/2" of
air isn't going to stop a direct strike.

I was sitting on a couch opposite the front windows; the lady of
the house was sitting in a chair by one of the windows reading a
magazine. She had a Coca-Cola in her hand as she read.

I heard a "plink" and glanced up toward its point of origin - the
area opposite me, by the window. The first sound was followed by a
high-pitched, but low-volume crackling. I will swear I saw an arc
jumping back and forth in the neck of the Coke bottle. The thunder
was
almost instantaneous with the sight of the arc.

Hmm, this reminds me of something that happened to me in Pennsylvania
back in 1996. The area I was in got socked badly by the remenants of
Hurricane Fran. Heavy rain and intense lightning for about 2 hours,
flooding, etc, power down for a good part of the night. A couple
hours after it was over, I went to bed, and when I looked at the metal
frame window above my bed, I could see faint bluish sparks dancing
around the inside, between the screen and the glass. The next morning,
I watched the news, and they were talking with fire fighters who were
getting shocks off of their trucks due to the intense static
electricity
still lingering in the area.


A few minutes later, Margarite, the lady of the house, took a
small swig of the Coke and exclaimed "G-d, this Coke is flat, all of
a
sudden".

When she left to empty the contents of the bottle in the kitchen
sink, I walked over to the window and there was a small "puncture"
hole
in the window glass at just about the same height as the Coke bottle
would have been.

This is the part that really has me creeped out. I'm pretty sure the
"plink" noise that the OP heard was from the hole being formed into
the glass, but I have to wonder just how it could've happened. My
theory is that some of the streamers formed around (inside?) the house
(hense the "crackling" the poster heard), and went through the glass,
but I've never heard of streamers, instead of an actual bolt do
something like this before. The poster mentioned seeing an arc
in the neck of the coke bottle, so my guess is, is that an arc formed
inside the window pane, super heated some moisture present in the
glass,
and caused a sor of "micro explostion" that caused a whole to form in
it.


As wary, and sometimes terrified, as Maine people were about
lightning, I never said anything. After all, I didn't want to be
responsible for someone having a heart attack.

Ever scince I moved to California 6 years ago, I've been dying for a
good thunderstorm. Back in October,(?) Los Angeles got hit with a
powerful

I found this in the Google Archives for this group. Questions/comments
throughout post


One afternoon, many years ago, we were haying on a farm in Maine
when a thunderstorm approached. We all retreated to the house to
wait
out the rain and storm.

As was the practice in those days, the lady of the house had
"backed out" all the fuses to break any indoor paths should a
lightning
strike occur on the power lines.


Hmmm, I wonder how effective something like this would be for
a bolt that just traveled through miles of air, which is a very good
insulator. Transformer blow outs, maybe, but an extra 1/2" of
air isn't going to stop a direct strike.

I was sitting on a couch opposite the front windows; the lady of
the house was sitting in a chair by one of the windows reading a
magazine. She had a Coca-Cola in her hand as she read.

I heard a "plink" and glanced up toward its point of origin - the
area opposite me, by the window. The first sound was followed by a
high-pitched, but low-volume crackling. I will swear I saw an arc
jumping back and forth in the neck of the Coke bottle. The thunder
was
almost instantaneous with the sight of the arc.

Hmm, this reminds me of something that happened to me in Pennsylvania
back in 1996. The area I was in got socked badly by the remenants of
Hurricane Fran. Heavy rain and intense lightning for about 2 hours,
flooding, etc, power down for a good part of the night. A couple
hours after it was over, I went to bed, and when I looked at the metal
frame window above my bed, I could see faint bluish sparks dancing
around the inside, between the screen and the glass. The next morning,
I watched the news, and they were talking with fire fighters who were
getting shocks off of their trucks due to the intense static
electricity
still lingering in the area.


A few minutes later, Margarite, the lady of the house, took a
small swig of the Coke and exclaimed "G-d, this Coke is flat, all of
a
sudden".

When she left to empty the contents of the bottle in the kitchen
sink, I walked over to the window and there was a small "puncture"
hole
in the window glass at just about the same height as the Coke bottle
would have been.

This is the part that really has me creeped out. I'm pretty sure the
"plink" noise that the OP heard was from the hole being formed into
the glass, but I have to wonder just how it could've happened. My
theory is that some of the streamers formed around (inside?) the house
(hense the "crackling" the poster heard), and went through the glass,
but I've never heard of streamers, instead of an actual bolt do
something like this before. The poster mentioned seeing an arc
in the neck of the coke bottle, so my guess is, is that an arc formed
inside the window pane, super heated some moisture present in the
glass,
and caused a sor of "micro explostion" that caused a whole to form in
it.


As wary, and sometimes terrified, as Maine people were about
lightning, I never said anything. After all, I didn't want to be
responsible for someone having a heart attack.

Ever scince I moved to California 6 years ago, I've been starving for
a
good thunderstorm. Back in October,(?) Los Angeles got hit with a
powerful
lightning storm, which was unusualy intense even by east coast
standards.
it hit in the late afternoon-early evening, and I stood in the parking
lot of
the apartment I was staying at* (under a substantial overhang, of
course!), watching the awsome display. There were plenty of CG bolts,
and Watts
got socked with so much hail, that it resembled wintertime in
Minnisota!
First decent thunderstorm I saw scince I moved to this state (though
there
were some pretty nice ones when I was in San Bernardino in late '98.
Close
by lightning, buzzing sounds audiable just before the strike,
etc.....)


*Not to knock on Californians, but a good number of them don't seem
to know what
to do in a thunderstorm. One person was standing on an elevated
staircase, just about the higest point within 30' with a metal umbrela
open!
I called up to him and told him about the danger he was putting
himself in,
but he seemed to just shrug and take it in stride!
Unfortunately, when we do get a T-storm here in So-Cal
(and the news makes a huge fuss over it , often there
is mention of somebody getting killed by lightning, usaly
when standing in their yard watching it :\