News - Blogs - Lightning strikes college football. Again with photos

Lightning strikes college football. Again! (with photos)
Published: 9/20/2011 7:00 AM
Last Modified: 9/20/2011 8:33 AM

Lightning, one of the most difficult things to photograph it seems, lights up the sky during a severe weather delay at Chapman Stadium as Oklahoma State and Tulsa wait to play their football game Saturday. Waited so long, in fact, that it was Sunday when they finally started. Check the link at the bottom for advice from our chief photgrapher on how to take lightning shots! MIKE SIMONS/Tulsa World

It wasn't to college football's benefit, but realignment of the storm clouds brought much-needed rain Saturday night to both Oklahoma and Texas.

First, let's acknowledge our neighbors to the south and their lightning-delayed Baylor-Stephen F. Austin football game. The Associated Press quote from the Baylor coach afterward should say it all:

"We get a win and it rains, that's pretty hard to beat right now," Baylor coach Art Briles said.

And, what was apparently the cause of as much cheering as Baylor having a winning, ranked football team again, officials told the spectators after a 41-minute rain delay that they would skip halftime's break and shorten the final quarters by three minutes each.

And THEN, the Associated Press reports, more lightning approached with 2:58 left in the third quarter, the coaches met at midfield, shook hands and let the clock run out in the quarter to make it an official game.

Here are some photos from Texas' lightning show and from the game Baylor hosted:

Hang in there Baylor fans! This is before the game was called Saturday night in Waco, Texas. TONY GUTIERREZ/AP Photo

Credit Stephen F. Austin fans for also braving the severe weather to watch their team Saturday night in Waco. TONY GUTIERREZ/AP Photo

And now, a little bit further north and a little bit further east to Paris, Texas, which is about two hours' drive northeast of Dallas. All three of these photos' credit are SAM CRAFT/AP Photo/The Paris News:

And... the Saturday night late game with the University of Tulsa hosting Oklahoma State University. It was delayed for so long that it became a Sunday morning game. If you haven't read up on this yet, check it out here.

"A lightning-heavy storm caused Chapman Stadium to be evacuated prior to kickoff," the article said. "The game did not start until 12:16 a.m. Sunday and did not finish until 3:35 a.m."

I know it must have been tough to wait that long for the OSU-Tulsa game. OU was just fortunate that they were not hosting the Florida State game this year instead of last year, because the storm also hit the Oklahoma City area and likely would have affected a game in Norman.

Please enjoy the photos taken by our Tulsa World photojournalists. They worked all night to bring them to you!

Tulsa's official rainfall total for Saturday? 0.78 of an inch. I guess lightning just makes storms seem a little bit more... large.

--Althea Peterson

PS: Want to take your own lightning photos next time severe weather strikes? Check out my previous entry with guidance from Tulsa World's chief photographer Tom Gilbert here.

Reader Comments

Show: Newest First

Learn About Our Comment Policy

To post comments on tulsaworld.com, you must be an active Tulsa World print or digital subscriber and signed into your account.

To sign in to your account, go to tulsaworld.com/signin.
To activate your print subscription for unlimited digital access and to post comments, go to tulsaworld.com/activate.
To purchase a subscription, go to tulsaworld.com/subscribe.

Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

Subscribe to this blog

Temperature
High Temp:	(Example: 45)
Low Temp:	(Example: 45)
Temperature Date:	(Example: 1/1/2011)

Precipitation
Total:	(Example: '.01)
Month to date:	(Example: '.01)
Normal month to date:	(Example: '.01)

2/2013	1/2013	12/2012	11/2012	10/2012	9/2012
8/2012	7/2012	6/2012	5/2012	4/2012	3/2012
2/2012	1/2012	12/2011	11/2011	10/2011	9/2011
8/2011	7/2011	6/2011

Your bookmark will appear on your Profile page. Please give it a title, and short description so that visitors to your page will understand where the bookmark leads.
Bookmark Title :

Bookmark Text :