[url=https://tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=315812#p315812 said:
bigwave » Thu May 23, 2013 4:26 pm[/url]"]It's called Jacob's Ladder, it happens all the time here on the big sportfish boats with tuna towers. I have actually seen it arch across the top rails, while buzzing the whole time......It is pretty scary.
I believe a "
Jacob's Ladder" is a man made device.
"A Jacob's ladder (more formally, a high voltage traveling arc) is a device for producing a continuous train of large sparks that rise upwards. The spark gap is formed by two wires, approximately vertical but gradually diverging away from each other towards the top in a narrow V shape. It was named for the "ladder to heaven" described in the Bible."
Could you be using a local term for
St. Elmo's Fire ??
"Saint Elmo's Fire is the lightning-like glow that gathers around a ship's mast, usually towards the end of storm. Sailors considered it the saint's way of telling them they'd get through the storm alive.
The less faithful - or poetic - refer to Saint Elmo's as corona discharge. The tip of the ship's mast is attached to the ship, and to the ocean. It retains a certain charge, even though it's high up. The clouds above whip up a different charge, even when they are quite close to the ground. Since air is a very poor conductor of electricity, the difference between these two charges, insulated by air, can become greater and greater.
Eventually something has to give, and it turns out to be the air molecules. Electrons get stripped off the air molecules and wander away from their nuclei. This behavior is unusual for air, but quite common in other substances. There is one other material in particular that allows for positively charged nuclei and free-range electrons; metal. As most people know, metal is a good conductor. The difference between the charge of the storm above and the ship's mast - and consquently the ground - is so great that it causes the air to take on some of the properties of metal in order to equalize the charges.
Now that the air can conduct electricity, charge flows through it freely, turning the air around the mast into an electron rave. Electrons rush continuously through the air, bumping into each other, into regular air molecules, into ionized air molecules, and are generally pumped full of energy. Naturally, this energy can't last, and when the electrons come down from their excited states, they heave up a photon.
Neon signs are basically Saint Elmo's Fire in tubes."