
New York Sky Turns Bright Blue After Transformer Explosion - shiftpgdn
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/nyregion/blue-sky-queens-explosion.html
======
snidane
Living in Astoria, NY and this happened a mile away from me.

At first my TV blips, my spotify shuts down and outside you could see this
very bright turquoise light all over the place. It was bright like it was a
daytime just in the green blue color. At first I thought it must had been some
fireworks nearby, New Year is coming, right? But there was no fireworks noise,
no party noise, nothing, just this bright green lit city. I open the window
and some lady in the building across me does the same and shouts 'wtf is
that?!'.

I realize this was not a party and my brain starts spinning..

1\. EMP attack, since the TV got affected 2\. Asteroid or comet entering the
atmosphere and messing up the magnetosphere 3\. Strong solar outburst, causing
some local aurora

I recently watched Robert Schoch's interview where he discussed huge solar
outbursts at the end of last ice age and how the sightings of resulting
auroras might have made it into ancient cultures.

[[https://youtu.be/Vka2ZgzZTvo](https://youtu.be/Vka2ZgzZTvo) roughly at
21:00]

In the end I rushed to the rooftop, scared as f, and noticed this was just a
transformer on fire at nearby power plant. Took a video, waited it out and
went back.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> In the end I rushed to the rooftop, scared as f

I'm glad that you were ok. I would probably have over-reacted by diving under
the bed. The lesson that I took from the footage of the Chelyabinsk meteor (1)
is this:

When people see a sudden bright light in the sky, the usual reaction is for
them to go to the window to see what it is. So then the blast wave arrives in
time to give them a face full of flying glass shards. (2)

Don't do this! Doesn't matter if you're being nuked or if it's only a meteor,
get down and stay away from the windows! Nothing good will come of having a
look-see.

1)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor)

2)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor#Injuries_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor#Injuries_and_damage)

~~~
ip26
Knowing what's going on kind of dictates your response. If it's a forest fire,
for example, swift action is much preferable to hiding under the bed. Hence
looking out the window.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
How swift? It can't be more than 15 seconds between flash of light and
shockwave. Staying down for that long in case there's a shockwave seems
reasonable.

Also, forest fires are not typically sudden flashes of light or found in urban
areas. Context matters.

~~~
BerislavLopac
According to the experience in Halifax explosion, a blast wave travels at 1000
m/s; so you get 15 seconds if the blast happens 10 miles away from you.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
Good to know. In the unlikely event etc, I'll give it 20 seconds or so then.

------
ghouse
Transformer "explosions" don't last very long. Transformer fires are a
different color. [0] As others have noted, the color suggests arcing. Arcing
has a number of different causes, but should be brief -- system protection in
the form of circuit breakers should interrupt the flow of power immediately
ending the arc.

This article is more factual, characterizing it as a electrical fault creating
an arc: [https://abc7ny.com/electrical-arc-turns-night-sky-blue-in-
ny...](https://abc7ny.com/electrical-arc-turns-night-sky-blue-in-nyc/4977959/)

It is curious that 1) it happened at all, and 2) system protection didn't
immediately isolate the circuit.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZipeaAkuC0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZipeaAkuC0)

~~~
skj
I imagine our conventional understanding of the utility of circuit breakers
falls apart quickly as we get to the inside of the actual power plant.

~~~
eigenvector
The function of the actual circuit breaker - to interrupt current - is not
different, although the mechanical construction changes quite a bit when you
need to interrupt both very high currents and extinguish the high-voltage arc
created when you interrupt the circuit. Inert gas (e.g. SF6) or vacuum are
used as dielectric mediums due to the high voltage.

What is different is how the breakers are controlled - rather than being its
own stand-alone overcurrent protection device as in a home electrical panel,
it's just a dumb device controlled by one or more multifunction microprocessor
relays that are designed to detect a variety of power system fault conditions
and clear them rapidly to avoid damage to expensive equipment.

------
antome
Here's a pretty good view from above, from reddit:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/aa632...](https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/aa632d/massive_new_york_city_electrical_fire_at_astoria/)

~~~
groestl
I think the battle is lost, but I'm a little bit sad seeing the sky over a
city being filmed in vertical video.

~~~
opless
Though it makes sense if you're watching it on your phone maximised in its
natural orientation.

~~~
abainbridge
We should just make phones square.

~~~
foobar1962
Or make the sensor square and have it record full-sensor so the image can be
rotes in post processing.

------
miiiiiike
I live about two blocks away. The lights dimmed and one of our breakers
flipped. Then it got bad. My phone suddenly lit up, brighter than the night's
electric blue sky, as everyone I've ever known called and texted to ask about
what was going on.

Nothing interesting. Astoria is a pretty great neighborhood tho. We have a
24-hour fruit market next to another 24-hour fruit market.

~~~
InclinedPlane
What's the difference between the fruit stores? Is one better than the other
or are they not directly comparable?

~~~
miiiiiike
United Brothers and Elliniki are similar, basically identical. I don't
actually know the history behind it. Probably something like a CVS setting up
shop across the street from a Walgreens.

United Brothers is interesting. It's an institution, but the family's that
owns it makes their real money from real estate now. And apples. Good apples.
Around October the apple barn next to the main United building is the best
smelling place in NYC. $0.89/lb.

------
Fezzik
I wonder how often these occur. When I was in my early 20s a buddy and I were
about 18 hours in to a drive to Buena Vista, CO from Portland, OR, when a
transformer exploded somewhere near us in a huge canyon. We thought it was
noiseless nucleur explosion - the light was searingly bright and seemed to
engulf everything. I just happened to call another friend (from a pay phone!)
who had experienced the same thing. Even in my sleep deprived state it is to-
this-day one of the most visceral moments of my life.

~~~
refurb
I had this happen while working from home in SF. My office window faces the
backyard and a transformer in front of my neighbors house went up.

No light show that I could see as it was early afternoon, but holy crap did
the noise ever scare me. The window was open and it made this incredibly loud
Bzzzzzz for about 10 seconds, then a small explosion. Took my brain about 20
seconds to connect the dots. See the smoking transformer helped.

~~~
lb1lf
I work on medium-sized power electric systems (mostly in the few hundred kW-
range), and have a strong aversion to being anywhere near our systems during
first power-up.

Hence, I always carry a couple of pushbuttons and some 15m of cable in my
toolkit - wiring them in parallel with the buttons normally starting the show,
retreating, saying a brief prayer to the patron saint of electricians and
starting up.

Did a system on a ship a few years ago, all set, me sitting in the corridor
outside the drive suite and pressing the button closing the main contactor,
only to be greeted by the tell-tale sound of a door being blown off its hinges
and an arc forming. Oh.

Cue incredible light show on the bulkhead opposite the drive suite door; after
a second of this, I come to my senses and figure the so-called arc safe
contactor -well- isn't.

I push the button jury-rigged to cut power at the generator end, only to have
nothing whatsoever happen. Oh oh.

Still arcing. I key my VHF to alert the engine room to kill the generator set
and alert them to the fire getting started in the drive suite, only to be told
in no uncertain terms to keep quiet as they were busy with an emergency.

Seconds later, ship goes black (and eerily quiet!) before the sound of boots
running down the corridor as the emergency lights kick in.

I've never felt as relieved as I did when the firefighting crew later told me
that I'd been most unlucky - a pump starter in the drive suite (not our
delivery) had opted out of existence and had sooted down all of my precious
kit.

It had blown up the very same moment I tried to start my equipment for the
first time - and for a few minutes I was certain I had contributed to taking
an investment in the several hundred million dollar range off-hire for however
long it took to replace the damaged electronics.

Instead, the crew apologised profusely for having me come all the way to the
wrong side of the planet only to see my delivery go up in flames not of my own
making.

Priceless.

I'll remember the sound, the light and the smell - not to mention that sinking
feeling - to the end of my days, though.

~~~
eigenvector
It's a good idea to stand outside the boundary of any arc-flash or arc-blast
hazard during first energization of any high-power equipment.

Also make sure that your employer provides you appropriate arc-flash
protective equipment if you're doing that kind of work.

Low voltage, high power systems often have very high arc flash hazard.

~~~
lb1lf
Speaking of low voltage, high power systems - we refine alumina around here;
the ovens run on 4,7V/200kA.

That makes for some quite impressive feeders!

------
Cthulhu_
How dangerous is that light? I know welding arcs contain a lot of dangerous UV
light for example. It should be fine indirectly (clouds would let the UV pass
or absorb it), but directly being exposed to it seems dangerous.

~~~
lvs
It's a good question. It depends on whether we're observing arc discharge or
just combustion. If it's arcing, it could surely have a significant UV
component. But I suspect this is burning copper or aluminum. HV transformers
are filled with some kind of cooling oil, and I suspect that just has to burn
off. If it were totally uncontrolled arcing, I'd guess there would be lots of
reports of broadband interference that I haven't come across.

~~~
mirimir
With that sort of light, there clearly was arcing. But most of the billowing
smoke was from burning transformer oil.

And about radio interference. This is 60 Hz, so I doubt that's an issue.

~~~
ben_w
A spark’s RF interference isn’t limited to the frequency of the power supply.
I don’t know the mechanism, but when I was a kid I found I could hold a
lightswitch in a halfway state and hear the interference on the nearby FM
radio. (Classic FM, so ~101 MHz compared to UK mains at 50 Hz).

~~~
aaaaaaaaaab
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-
gap_transmitter](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter)

------
kolinko
If you see bright light, duck and cover. If you go to the window, and it was
some kind of a huge explosion, once the shockwave reaches, the windows will
shatter and you will get seriously injuired.

~~~
jaredwiener
I was probably two miles or so away in Manhattan -- there was no noise, no hit
to the electricity, nothing. I was watching TV and then saw an otherworldly
color sky out he window.

The actual source of the bright light was blocked by a building, so it looked
a little like what I imagine the aurora borealis looks like. Then it started
to rapidly change colors and flicker -- like fireworks, but without the noise.

In NYC, stuff happens all the time that is completely innocuous. There's an
outdoor venue (Randall's Island) relatively nearby that often has music
festivals. In the past few months I have had a very vivid light flashing
outside that turned out to be from a construction crane about 8 blocks away;
another time a red glow was from the lights of fire engines amassed on a
neighboring street during an actual fire.

I mention this if only to say it is very easy to criticize someone's behavior
in a situation like this after the fact, but when it is happening, the thought
that this could be a huge explosion does not even register.

~~~
kolinko
Ah, sorry - not criticising, just reminding :) There was an article on HN
recently on how important it is to follow this, and how life saving it can be.

If there is a flash and you hear no sound, it doesn’t mean it’s safe either -
sound travels 300m/s, so if there was an explosion 2.5miles away, you would
only see bright visuals on the sky, no sound, for the first 10-13sec, and then
the shockwave would hit...

------
askvictor
Once as a teenage (somewhere in the early 90s) I was watching a thunderstorm
in suburban Sydney. I saw lightning strike (probably 5-10km) away, then a
couple of seconds after the strike from about where the lightning hit, a blue
'bubble' (though with diffuse edges) rose (as though inflating) then
fell/deflated over the course of a few seconds.

I've never gotten a good explanation for what it was, though this picture
makes me think lightning struck an electricity sub station, caused a brief
electrical fire which lit up the sky as it got more intense, then died off.

~~~
kolinko
Ball lightning?

~~~
askvictor
As I understand it, ball lightning is typical small; this bubble would have
been in the order of 100m; also it was blue not white like ball lightning is
typically.

------
reustle
Here's a video I took

[https://twitter.com/reustle/status/1078476019051446273](https://twitter.com/reustle/status/1078476019051446273)

Felt like fireworks without the sound

~~~
Taniwha
best twitter comment I've seen is "these gender reveal events are really
getting out of hand"

------
pauldix
I was a few miles away in Williamsburg walking outside when this happened. No
line of sight to source because of the buildings. Just saw the clouds & sky
turn orange and then bright blue and then it started flickering. Seemed to go
on for a few minutes before it just faded away. My wife and I started to get
concerned because we had no clue what it could be. I turned to Twitter and
found out pretty quickly it was a transformer explosion, but there were about
five minutes where we weren't sure what to do just caught out on the street.

LGA got shut down briefly because of the power outage. Amazingly, they had it
back online in an hour. Which was great for us because we flew out of there
this morning.

~~~
mtalantikite
I was sitting in my living room in Williamsburg when I noticed the lights dim
and saw the sky outside was a pulsating blue. It kept it up for what seemed
like a couple minutes and I didn't hear any loud explosions, so I just assumed
it was a film crew shooting a movie in the neighborhood.

------
johnohara
Would be interesting to know how many people unwittingly presented to an
Urgent Care/ER with symptoms of "welder's flash."

ICD-10-CM code H16.139 - Photokeratitis, Unspecified Eye.

It's no-joke. You need a mask or you immediately look away. No exceptions.

------
sudhirj
In India transformers are build between houses, or on the street just outside
houses, so you get some pretty interesting shots like this (happened at an
apartment I used to live in)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB2T_r9oVlI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB2T_r9oVlI)

------
ChuckMcM
Apparently ConEd now can apply to the Guiness Book of Records for largest arc
light ever :-) I really enjoyed some of the twitter comments, "Astoria
Borealis", "Amazon HQ corner stone", and "Somebody in Queens better have super
powers after this!"

The event itself though is a really interesting example of 21st century
phenomena observation. Much like the meteor over Chelyabinsk, so much video
from a bunch of nearby cameras (dash cam's in Russia and smartphones in New
York), it creates an amazing amount of raw data that people can sift through
to try to figure out what is going on.

------
lvs
Someone with HV experience should probably know better, but I'm curious if the
color is due to burning copper and/or aluminum. Copper salts used in fireworks
burn at nearly this color.

~~~
dschuetz
Excited copper ions inside the discharge plasma emitting blue->UV light,
sounds plausible to me.

------
DaOne256
I have never seen a transformator explosion in Germany or Europe. What is
different in the american power grid?

~~~
hevi_jos
US power distribution is way more distributed than in Europe, in which
everything is planned and centralized.

In the US there are transformers everywhere, you can see a house and a small
transformer nearby.

In Europe they have this big monsters that cost several million dollars and
require a train to move.

In Europe transformers in the city use to be underground and you won't see
anything but a blackout of power.

It happened in Madrid some years ago.

Old transformers are very toxic as mineral oil with aromatic rings is
burned,which is carcinogenic. New transformers use Hexafluoride SHF6 that are
smaller, innocuous and easier to control.

But it cost a lot of money to update your infrastructure.

New York also has experimental superconductor lines.

~~~
Faaak
> In Europe they have this big monsters that cost several million dollars and
> require a train to move.

Europe is just denser. But frankly, you don't seem to know what you're talking
about.

1.2-5MW transformers are really everywhere in France/Switzerland. Sometimes
many per villages.

It makes sense: You prefer to have two transformers far apart than a big one
and 2kms of 230/380V wiring.

------
Animats
That's impressive. Look forward to seeing a technical analysis.

I just checked PJM's emergency event list, and it didn't affect the wholesale
grid enough to cause any concern.

------
JoeAltmaier
Driving home in the country when I was a kid, the sky lit up like daytime. Dad
drove toward it - it was a power substation. He got out and asked a lineman
nearby what was up, reported back to us "A raccoon got stuck across a
transformer". Apparently it became the equivalent of a carbon arc searchlight,
lasted for quite a while by my recollection.

~~~
msisk6
Several years ago at work we lost one of our utility feeds. Turns out a snake
got up on the pole and shorted across two phases. Texas.

------
skunkworker
Reminds me of the independence day alien attack scene.

[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/id4/images/6/6b/ScreenSh...](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/id4/images/6/6b/ScreenShout031.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131215161748)

------
menzoic
This happens in Nigeria a lot (><) I hear and see a transformer explode
multiple times per week.

~~~
CompuHacker
What is the cause?

~~~
jdietrich
Theft, mainly. A transformer is a big lump of copper, but even the oil is
meaningfully valuable in a low-income country. There are reports of widespread
transformer oil theft across Africa and South-East Asia. Draining a
transformer of oil is easy, it'll earn you a few naira and it'll inevitably
lead to the transformer burning itself out in spectacular fashion.

[https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/thieves-f...](https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/thieves-
fry-kenya-power-grid-fast-food-2014122884728785480.html)

[http://www.eskom.co.za/AboutElectricity/PubSafety/Pages/Tran...](http://www.eskom.co.za/AboutElectricity/PubSafety/Pages/Transformer.aspx)

[https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/theft-of-oil-
fro...](https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/theft-of-oil-from-
transformers-electricity-department-in-shock--1.3050138)

~~~
robocat
Jeepers - they use the stolen oil to deep fry food!

Why don't they add some things to:

(a) make it taste horrid,

(b) make it smell horrendous when burnt?

------
djohnston
“No injuries, no fire, no evidence of extraterrestrial activity,” made me
chuckle

~~~
AznHisoka
I hope the mention of extraterresterial wasnt tongue in cheek though. Because
it might be a legitimate threat someday.

~~~
macintux
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where ET arrives and is both threatening _and_
something we can defend against.

I imagine when the aliens arrive we’ll be so far behind the technology curve
that there’s not much point in trying to defend ourselves.

~~~
djohnston
agreed, if they arrive on our doorstep we've already lost in a military sense,
although as in War of the Worlds, maybe some of our microbial friends would
come to the rescue

------
ggm
What happens to the fluids in the transformer? PCB breaks down in very high
heat, into much more benign things. Hopefully a long persistent arc helps make
conditions right to get rid of a lot of it. Otherwise.. it's a nasty
contaminated site.

Be kind rewind...

~~~
eigenvector
Nowadays, large power transformers like those that would be found in a
generating station or large substation are surrounded by an oil containment
pit to prevent release of oil directly to the environment.

------
unqueued
I saw it from about 25 miles north, at the train station. The sky was the most
beautiful shade of blue.

[https://unqueued.github.io/public-
pictures/](https://unqueued.github.io/public-pictures/)

------
ryanmercer
Why don't I ever get to see wild stuff in person? Immediately reminded me of
'the Norway spiral'

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/01/20/up...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/01/20/update-
on-the-norway-spiral/)

[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/2009_Norwegian_spiral_anomaly](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/2009_Norwegian_spiral_anomaly)

------
anigbrowl
Is this light in the sky a reflection (as on water vapor/smog) of what is
happening at ground level?

~~~
spdustin
It was likely the electrical discharge through the nitrogen in the air
(guessing arc discharge in this case); it ionizes the nitrogen, which emits
blue light when it's subsequently de-ionized.

------
Axsuul
Cloverfield feels anyone?

------
qwerty456127
Every time something like this happens it's like "Oh, finally! The aliens! No
earthly bullshit any more, all the people will unite to fight the common enemy
or die a beautiful way..." and then just meh...

------
peignoir
Ghostbusters!

------
henkdevries
Title made me think of a Marvell movie...

~~~
em-bee
i was expecting some kind of movie promotion...

------
Tsubasachan
Do not grieve. Soon I shall be one with the Matrix.

------
overcast
Looks like someone shut down the Ecto Containment Unit again!

------
mrfusion
There’s so much we don’t know about high voltages. I never understood why we
don’t research it more. I guess too dangerous.

Even a phenomenon like this. Could we use it for lighting a whole City for
less power than streetlamps?

~~~
specialp
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_lamp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_lamp).
These were used for a while before the incandescent bulb for street lighting.
They aren't very power efficient. I used to work on one in a large projection
system and I had to wear protective gear when changing the bulb because it
could catastrophically explode.

BTW if anyone is interested in the voltage involved here, my friend works for
ConEd and was on the scene. It was a 246kv step down transformer to 27kv. They
have a lot of redundancy so it was fixed pretty quickly.

