Interesting Lightning in tonights chicagoland storms

[wonga1127]

I have a question for those who are meteorologically inclined. Driving around in the thunderstorms tonight, I saw some pretty interesting lightning that the Internet can't explain.

Looking at the main area of the storm (at this point they had moved east over my house), there were large flashing orbs, i guess, of green and red light, red at the bottom. Think aurora, but not ribbon shaped, but round shaped. They glowed for about half a second or more, gradually increasing and decreasing in brightness during the duration of their existence. I have no idea what these are, and I was wondering if anyone here knows what they are, and if you live in Chicagoland, if you saw them too. Thanks.

 

[61132]

Search up ball lightning, is that what you saw?

 

[wonga1127]

The things I saw were quite large, taking up a good 1/5, 1/4 of my field of vision. I was not under the impression that ball lightning was that big, correct me if im wrong.

 

[exabytes18]

Could it have been a transformer that was hit by lightning? They typically do pretty strange things when they get hit, but they all pretty much flash and go bang. lol

If they catch fire, they'll continue to flash and burn.

There was a ton of lightning associated with these storms so some transformers where bound to have gotten "lit up."