Must See Video: Meteorologist, TV Station Struck By Lightning On The Air During Hurricane

Viewers of the local Baltimore ABC affiliate got to see a rare and scary situation unfold before their eyes Friday (July 4) as the outer bands of Hurricane Arthur moved through the region.

While WMAR-TV 2 meteorologist Mike Masco was delivering a weather report, the television station and Masco were both struck by lightning. That’s right, the TV station and their weather man were both struck by lightning.

Here is how Masco reported the TV station’s lightning strike, as it happened (video above):

“We’ve watched this camera go from sunny to now dark. You can see this lightning in the background, Maryland’s most powerful weather radar saying that these storms containing around somewhere in the vicinity of 1,000 to 2,000 bolts of cloud-to-ground lightning every 15 minutes. That’s tremendous. Dangerous, a dangerous electrical storm over the city right now. It’s all of Cockeysville… [Audio and video cut out]… We just got hit by lightning. The station just got hit by lightning. I don’t know if you can see us, but we are getting hit right now with some tremendous lightning. We just showed you on Maryland’s… if you can still hear us at home right now, we just got zapped because of the storm over Towson right now, moving through Essex and Dundalk.”

While Masco kept calm during the lightning strike to the station, it did not mean he was not feeling the surge of electricity as it traveled through the building and into his body. Check out what he had to say immediately after filing the report above, and keep in mind that this was all playing out live over the Baltimore airwaves:

“I felt that through my body. I mean, that was a weird feeling.”

To get an idea of just how dangerous the lightning was, Masco later tweeted this photo, though it does not appear to be the specific lightning strike that hit the station. Either way, not anything anyone wants to see of experience up close.

Crazy GOPRO picture of the lightning from this evening! VIA Conor McCarthy pic.twitter.com/PLdhlAwvDb

— Mike Masco (@MascoFromABC2) July 3, 2014

The storm also cause other problems at the station, according to Masco (again from his Twitter feed):

The AC is still not fixed at ABC 2… Meaning we will look like night of the living dead on TV..Stay tuned…. — Mike Masco (@MascoFromABC2) July 4, 2014

Masco reported via Twitter that the storm made landfall at 11:15 pm Eastern Time, meaning any chance for a good Independence Day fireworks show for a large portion of the east coast was nonexistent. While disappointing for many, it was not unexpected as The Inquisitr reported Tuesday (July 1) that Independence Day celebrations could be a bust because of the storm.

[Image via Screenshot]