Nuclear Explosion Legs - What are They?

[DiracPool]

I always wanted to ask a nuclear scientist about this. What are these weird wiggly thin lines we always see during a nuclear bomb detonation? If you look to the right side of the screen on the first video, they look like the "legs" of a fine whisky dribbling down a fine whisky glass. But what do they have to do with a nuke?



On the left side of the screen here:



And, again, you see these legs off to the left:

 

[NTW]

They are the wakes of sounding rockets, launched vertically just before the detonation with the purpose of detecting the winds associated with the explosion.

 

[davenn]

They are the wakes of sounding rockets, launched vertically just before the detonation with the purpose of detecting the winds associated with the explosion.

a spot on answer Dave