A routine drive through a Utah canyon turned into a split-second encounter with a lightning bolt Tuesday night.
Motorist Tucker Ralphs was traveling on Interstate 84 through Weber Canyon when his dashcam captured a truck moving along the freeway ahead of him.
Then the roadway lit up.
A bolt struck along the edge of the interstate just as the truck passed the spot, leaving Ralphs with a remarkably close view of the strike.
A Flash Ahead
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Storyful, which obtained the dashcam footage from Ralphs, said the encounter happened Sept. 22 while he was commuting home on I-84 in Weber Canyon.
“Lightning struck the edge of the freeway feet from a truck just ahead of me,” Ralphs told Storyful.
He described an intensely bright flash followed by a sharp crack and boom. Ralphs said he was alone in his vehicle and immediately called his girlfriend after the strike.
The footage lasts only seconds, but the timing is unusually clear: the truck passes alongside the point where the bolt reaches the ground, while Ralphs approaches from farther back.
Storms Were Moving
The lightning did not arrive out of an otherwise quiet sky.
The National Weather Service in Salt Lake City issued a special weather statement Tuesday evening for thunderstorms affecting parts of Weber and Davis counties.
That statement specifically included Interstate 84 between mile markers 82 and 89. Later that evening, the weather service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for eastern Weber County and western Morgan County as another storm moved northeast through the area.
ABC4, which first reported on Ralphs’ footage locally, said National Weather Service data placed a lightning strike near I-84 milepost 87 at about 9 p.m.
Safer Inside
For anyone caught on the road during a thunderstorm, being inside a hard-topped vehicle generally offers significantly more protection than being outside.
The National Weather Service says that protection comes primarily from a vehicle’s outer metal shell, not its rubber tires. If a vehicle is directly struck, electrical current can travel through the metal exterior toward the ground.
That does not mean the vehicle necessarily escapes damage. The agency says direct strikes can damage antennas, electrical systems, windows, and tires and, in some cases, ignite a fire.
Ralphs’ footage instead captured the bolt reaching the roadside beside the moving traffic — bright enough and close enough for him to remember the sound as much as the flash.