Just in case any of you wish to see what St. Elmos fire looks like (not the 80's song by John Parr . We were flying through high startus clouds that were associated with Thunderstorm that were hundreds of miles away. ST. Elmos fire is completely natural phenomena. It occurs when flying through very cold (-40c) clouds, generally of the stratus type, but can occur in cumulous clouds as well.
Very cool! We used to see it in smaller scale in the astrophysics lab where I hung out as an undergrad, on some of the more pointy parts of the high-voltage equipment we worked with. It was pretty neat.