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When Lightning Strikes
ctwxman writes "For most of the United States (sorry West Coast), this is the season for lightning. It is as powerful as it is spectacular to look at. It is destructive too - by itelf or through the hail, straight line winds and tornadoes that often accompany it. As someone who forecasts the weather, I'm often asked about lightning. As you might imagine, there's plenty to see about lightning on the Internet. The conditions necessary and a little bit of the physics behind lightning are explained by Jeff Haby, a meteorologist (one of my professors actually) at Mississippi State University. Once forecasters get a handle on what's going on, they put the word out through the Storm Prediction Center. Regular outlooks are issued by SPC for severe storms. Once those storms rear their ugly heads, they're followed with mesoscale discussions looking at the active areas. The Storm Prediction Center is also the place where Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Watches are issued and storm related damage reports are compiled. Lots of hobbyists like to track lightning strikes on their own, and there's equipment available to do just that. Getting hit by lightning is never fun, though not always fatal. National Geographic chronicled an amazing story of a lightning strike, and rescue, on Grand Teton."
For a bit of fun, you can check out the National Lightning Detection Network, which shows recent lightning strikes in the USA over the last few hours.
Q: Why did the blonde keep stopping then smile during a
lightning storm?
A: She thought she was getting her picture taken.
Sorry West Coast ....
Umm.. the constant threat of earthquakes is nothing to sneeze at... while not as loud as thunder/lightning it's sure can be a wild ride.
http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latest.htm
he was in his pool ans could hear thunder in the distance so he throught he should probably get out, but as the cloud got closer the surface of the pool started to "boil". The huge negative chage in the cloud induced an equal positive charge in the ground underneath it. As this positive charge was attracted to the cloud it made ions in the water making it boil. After pondering that for a minute he jumped ou tof the pool so as not to be killed.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Evidentially the submitter has never been to the West Coast. We have thunderstorms during this time of the year too (well, usually they occur later in July and August). Of course they probably aren't as bad as what you find over the midwest, but clearly this dude has no clue what he's talking about. :P
The first link is a little scant on details...if you're really interested in lightning I'd recommend this.
What did the lightning bolt say to the other lightning bolt?
You're shocking.
California had some pretty serious problems with power a few years ago.
The headline is great!
Not really on it's own merits, but I instantly imagined the remarks from when the "story" is posted again in 2 weeks: "When Lightning Strikes Twice"
I know Im going to get modded down for this; but Ive lived in Wa, Tx, Ak and Az; and out of all of them, its (ironically) been in Az where Ive seen lightening the most intensely (longer duration, and more clearly visible) and also the most closely (within blocks of where I live).
Absolutely breathtaking.
As someone who has lost his share of equipment to lightning hits over the years (telephones, one PC, even a CB radio) I love being able to unplug my wireless laptop and feel safe to keep surfing. God bless 802.11b.
LETS DECOMPOSE & ENJOY ASSEMBLING
That would be thunder you idiot!
For most of the United States (sorry West Coast), this is the season for lightning.
Damn. And I had my cable hanging down from the Hill Valley Clock Tower all ready too.
The coolest voice ever.
Eh? I'm sure if the power goes it in Yuma on the hottest day of the a few people will die. We lose a few hundred border crossers a year here. An the occasional tourists.
For those of you visiting Arizona and planning on going on a hike. 1 liter of water is good for about... oh 20-30 minutes?
I've never been directly struck by lightning, but I have been "zapped" i guess you can say, by some sort of mild electric shock when a big bolt hit right near my apartment complex.
I ran upstairs to the 3rd floor, to shut a window because it had been raining.. I go to close the window, i'm standing on wet carpet (the whole room is practically soaked) and suddenly BLAM. Big lightning strike, and I got shocked. It almost felt like my whole body was doing a tongue test on those square 9v batteries. Probably the closest i've ever come to being struck.
Has this happened to anyone else? I had previously believed that one could only get struck or zapped by lightning outside of a house.
As someone who forecasts the weather
Sorry, you've lost all credibility right there.
-my other sig is your mom
I understand that when lightening enters your body and then abruptly leaves, that you are left with a nasty exit wound.
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
I wonder if there's anything that could be done to capture the power in lightning. Has anyone seen anything about this? Perhaps some sort of equipment attached to a lightning rod on a tall building?
Why can't we capture lightning and store the energy in giant capacitors or something?
Yes, I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Don't forget the New Mexico Tech Lightning Mapping System. Here's the link http://ibis.nmt.edu/nmt_lms/
It has some pretty neat images of their lightning mappings. You can see the lightning in 3D, and the precursors to lightning, etc.
Not much info, but there's been some really neat research going on out there. Maybe someone else knows more.
I think this will be the season for antennae and wireless shops around the US. With the growing WAN's around the place, and the endless similarity between a lightning rod and those antennae... Ouch!
Fun to watch but expensive to reproduce...
Beta Sucks
I posted some links and info at http://lightning.thunder.net/ after getting pestered by enough kids trying to do research for school work who kept writing to the webmaster address for this domain.
My wife's best friend was killed by lightning in Houston in 2001. A storm had passed though about a half hour before and it appeard to be clearing. She went into the front yard to do some weeding in a flower bed beside the driveway. Her house was in the middle of a bunch of very large pines. They probably had 2 dozen 75-100' pine trees throughout the yard and the entire lot was under the canopy. Not to mention that there were 2 aluminum light poles within 25 yards of where she was struck. Examining the damage afterwards, a tree was struck. The lightning travelled along the tree for about 15 feet and then must have travelled through the air, through her body and into the rebar in the driveway (or reverse that since lightning supposedly travels up). A neighbor began cpr within 2 minutes and they had her to a hospital within 15-20 minutes. They got her heart working again eventually, but never any brain activity. I kinda like to think that she died immediatly. From what I was told, there wasn't any visible damage to her body except for some blood from her nose and mouth (that was third hand since the neighbor wouldn't talk about it).
and you're trying to get a buzz going around your idiotic FP attempt that didn't even work!
and adds his own idiocy. The idiocy grows across deep levels of inheritance.
...is being a weather guesser. Thursday night the weather weenies were saying how sunny and warm and nice it would be today. The high was 62, and we got 2 inches of rain. No weather forecasters were fired. They're never fired, no matter how often they're wrong. Hell, they never get so much as a day off without pay for screwing up royally. So kids - study meteorology and broadcasting in college if you want to make the big bucks and have job security.
I spent a lot of time in the Rockies during Summers of my youth. We were taught that if the hair stood up on any part of our body, ditch the backpack and dive flat. I saw a guy who had three quarters and a pocketknife end up with an entry point of some metal slag who was caught by surprise.
Also, there are different types of lightning & static activity - Tesla seemed to be the master during his lifetime. One of the most baffling types of static|lightning activity is ball lighting. There have been stories for a long, long time beyond FOAF|UL describing a small globe of what appears to be lightning in an orb, having appeared out of nowhere, moving about without a pattern, then disappearing as mysteriously. IIRC, most of the reports involve aircraft. Tesla demonstrated great prowess in creating them, controlling them, and destroying them, to the bewilderment of all. And for all who thought he was a crackpot while he was alive (including the gov't), why did they pack up all of his belongings when he died and send them off to parts unknown?
I live next to a golf course with a lightning detector to warn golfers of electrical activity in the vicinity. I'm not trying to paint all such products with the same brush, but the detector only seems to trigger the warning sirens just after a thunderclap so I've been somewhat skeptical of the utility of these devices.
Still the noise from the detector is better than golf balls hitting my roof so anything that gets people off the course and give me peace is welcome.
I am a weather spotter for the national weather service and I have seen some interesting storms here in VA... We once had a storm so intense that the sky was dark enough around 2:00pm that you could see stars in the breaks of the clouds and the moon was "shining." That was freaky - apparently, that storm spawned a "small" tornado that threw individual blades of grass through a telephone pole. In 1985, the southern part of the state, where I am originally from, experienced the "Flood of 85." The Roanoke river crested at a record 23 feet... tons of damage was done, but some amazing stories, like that of an aging Labrador retriever in Eagle Rock that pulled its master to safety out of the rolling waters of Craig Creek, came out of it... Here is a photo of the Roanoke stadium.
A guy I know put an antenna up in a pine tree, about 70 feet, without a ground wire. Needless to say it got nailed, about 2am while he slept. Detonated the antenna, peeling it into 2ft long, thin strips of fiberglass. Boiled his coax, all the way into his house. Electrofried his radio, and set its power cord on fire. (under his bed, where he was sleeping, setting the carpet on fire) Blew the outlet off the wall. Got into the breaker box and destroyed several breakers, two microwaves, and three color TVs. Finally found ground via the phone entrance box on the outside of the house, which was blown off the house. This was the SECOND time he had been hit, the previous time was the same exact scenario, just not as damaging.
A guy down the block got his ham radio antenna hit, blowing the base of the antenna to pieces. (severing the ground connection in the process, unfortunately) The lightning then took out his coax like det cord, which was laid down under one layer of shingles. This shot the shingles that were laid over the coax right off the house. It then took out his radio, followed the power cord into the electrical system in his house, took out all the appliances in his kitchen, and then went underground to his garage and took out three marine radios that were on charge at the time.
A friend and former co-worker had an employee of his arrive late to work. When asked of the excuse, he said he got his truck struck by lightning on the way in. And boy did he. They never found any of the whip antenna. The base of it, solid brass, was melted like ice cream. Blew out the back sliding windows where the coax came into the cab. Blew the radio to pieces. Finally found ground via front left quarterpanel, which was permanently bowed inward from the sudden heating.
I worked on someone's computer recently, they had pictures on their desktop of a relative's car that was struck while going down the highway. It hit the rear mounted stereo antenna, arced into the body of the car, (creating a 1/2" hole in the metal near the antenna mount) and found ground via ALL FOUR TIRES, arcing across the wheel wells and apparently through the steel belts, flattening all four tires in the process. It also blew out the rear window from the concussion.
My car was struck by lightning while on the road too. Took out the headlights and the windshield wipers, which then started working normally a few hours later. (probably tripped the breakers that those items usually are on instead of fuses)
I have a large ham radio antenna at my house as well, which has been struck at least three times so far, you can count the char marks on it. Thanks goes to a 1/4" solid aluminum ground wire and a 10ft copper water pipe for a ground rod, the lightning has never even scratched my radio, which remains plugged in and cabled up 24/7.
Lastly, if you're ever on a beach and run into a patch of what appears like a cross between pavement and sand, that's where lightning has struck the beach and melted the sand into glass. Really weird effect...
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
My wife likes to go outside on the porch and watch lightening storms. I live in Texas - so the storms can get pretty intense.
I prefer to stay inside, and not present a path to ground (or more accurately a path from ground) for the random bolts.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
As someone who is finishing his BS in Meteorology from a reputable university that teaches meteorology (Univ of Oklahoma), I am really sick and tired of people not giving credit to meteorologists. First, I want to set some facts out:
1) People on TV usually do not have a BS in meteorology. They are usually journalists, hence, they have not taken the required math and physics that one needs in order to understand that air behaves like a fluid in a nonlinear fashion. Please take the time to distinguish between people that have science degrees and people who do not.
2) Weather Prediction. For anyone that complains about how meteorologists cannot predict the weather, I would like to see you apply your skills of solving Partial Differential Equations that are extremely complicated in a Lagrangian reference frame. Numerical weather models have to approximate solutions to the complicated PDEs and even have to reduce important terms (Scale Analysis) that, of course, play a significant role in the long term.
3) The Storm Prediction Center is located in Norman, OK. As an undergraduate... I love to learn about the vertical tilting and stretching of a baroclinically induced horizontal vorticity zone... i.e.. Tornadogenesis. SPC saves lives and employees people that have masters in meteorology. They are highly qualified and are not the usual crapfest that you see on The Weather Channel or local news stations.
Moof!
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Hmmm.... The west coast is a big place, and maybe some it has a lot of lightning. My part sure doesn't. I live in Oregon now, and I've seen less lightning here than anywhere else I've ever lived. So maybe the guy's not totally off-base.
"Boo hoo, they don't have power outages in the heat of the day."
Yes we do, actually. I was in LA a couple of months ago and the heat caused people to run their ACs. Result? Power reserves went really low. When that happens, rolling blackouts have to occur. The only reason the death toll isn't so high is that they are well prepared for it.
Can't say I blame you for being this misinformed, though. After living here for the last 3 months, I'm findnig some of the Californian stereotypes quite amusing. For example, did you know that LA isn't covered in a dark brown haze that looks like the surface in the Matrix?
"Derp de derp."
There was a flash very big boom, during which a piece of electrical equipment up the street turned into sparks. A moment later, the sky lit up again, this time not white, but blue.
My office is on the forth floor in a not very big town, so I have pretty good view of a lot of it, and it was lit up as bright as the brightest of sunny days. But blue.
I believe I saw a flashover, which occurs when lightning hits something electrical, and the electricty within, which had previously been happy doing its thing, jumps out and follows the lightning bolt's path. This can continue for several seconds after the lightning has stopped.
My girlfriend was there to see this too--in fact, she dropped to her knees and said "that's the scariest thing I've ever seen." And I agree. Lightning is fascinating stuff, and terrifying.
Getting hit by lightning is never fun ... what if you're flying a kite when it happens?
Seriously, though... slow news day? This is the type of stuff they run in the papers when noone's found an interesting way to bleed in the past week, or a bad reason to sue some wealthy corporation.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I'm in Sydney, Australia and I just saw a butterfly flapping its wings. Someone on the other side of the world is about to get a tornado on their doorstep.
Anything that costs more than $20 tends to get crossed out on the list of cool toys. I've been thinking of building some other weather/geo sensors (even a seismograph) and logging stuff just for the heck of it.
Speaking of which, is there any way to detect cosmic rays without a university dept backing me up? The things are so rare, that I'd never know it wasn't working....
If you ever get a chance to travel around in the southwest, try to stay at the Lightning Field in New Mexico. It is a rustic stay at the cabins there but it is worth staying there overnight. Even without the lightning strikeing the sculpture it is an awesome site. The field is most active during the summer months past July. http://www.lightningfield.org/ Support the arts!
... but the article doesn't mention anything about it. Does anyone know if there have been serious, repeatable scientific conclusions drawn about it (i.e., effects upon contact, genesis, etc.)? Google is somewhat less than helpful.
+++ATH0
Humans, on the other hand, don't have as much of a problem, because their feet are so close together.
Shutup with the dispelling of the sterotypes, we made those up so more people wouldn't show up.
don't listen to NanoGator people, California sterotypes are all true so stay away; San Francisco is all homosexuals, LA air is toxic, californians are all veggie eating smelly hippies, there's no meat in the whole state so stay in nebraska or texas or whatever god forsaken *cough* I mean lovely place that you live in and don't move to California.
My own experience with lightning, for the lack of a better word, was simply awesome and I'm glad it wasn't a closer hit. A thunderstorm developed over the neighbouring fields of my parent's farm and slowly made it's way over our fields. It was an extremely hot and humid day, the sudden down pour settled the dust quickly while the temperature dropped several degrees in a few seconds. I watched a lightning bolt strike the ground in the middle of a flat empty field leaving the ground smoking even though it was raining cats & dogs.
I happened to be standing at the patio door: bare foot on a forced-air furnace register (vent) which was effectively well-grounded. The next lightning bolt struck a nearby tree or the house. It didn't really matter where it struck. I could literally feel the charge race through my body and make my hair stand on end. The flash and boom were simultaneous.
A few minutes later we were sitting at the kitchen table. Another close-by strike caused a 6-inch long blue arc that leapt from the electric stove's fuse panel through a stainless pot and grounded out through the stove's element. It also blew out all the lights on that side of the house.
That was by far the scariest storm I have ever experienced.
Clear skies and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Darn, wish I was on the East Coast.
by pure coincidence I opened my browser to /. while waiting for the voltages to come back up and I see this story up at the top.
Lightening happens around here (west coast) and the coax goes out the window the radios get disconnected from the AC. 10 foot ground rods last about 3 months in this soil. My tower has 4 #10 copper leads anout 10 inches long going to "ground." I am knocking on wood I haven't lost anything to EMF but hams just 2 blocks away have lost rigs and computers to Lightening EMF and leaving stuff connected. Oh and I don't leave the tower cranked up when I am not home or during storms. I hope the path of least ressistance is through the palm tree in my Neighbors yard or the Jupiner in the other ones both which are taller than any antenna usually have up.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
I was hit by lightning about 20 years ago in Australia. I was out playing golf when hit in the left arm. Horrendous burns and lots of scars left to this day. No fun at all.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
You can tell this guy is a phony. He left out one of the most important conditions on the web site - the decapitation of an Immortal!
Chlorine in a pool exists as some sort of ion,
so it carries a charge. Prior to a lightening strike
or near-strike, you get weird effects on the target
from charges building up. If one half of the
chlorine compound (the + or - ion) got pulled to
the surface by this, you might well see some effects.
In my area, (Alaska Range) as well as the Interior and the Brooks Range of Arctic Alaska all have very severe storms; I have witnessed them, and the resulting forest fires, firsthand. I have recorded some fierce storms, with lightning, marble-size hail, strong winds, and once I swear was a tornado (I'm from the midwest originally, and know what a funnel cloud looks like).
-cp-
Bigfoot Sighted in Yukon
I'll soon be getting a Clearwave wireless internet connection... which will result in an antenna mounted on the roof plugged directly into my network.
I'm guessing it'll be about a year before I have to replace 3 fried computers.
I drove semi trucks for several years. In a thunderstorm near Decatur Illinois I saw a bright flash and heard a loud pop the realized my engine was dead. I was able to coast to an off-ramp and park. When I inspected my truck I realized I had no electrical power at all. Finally I took look at my cb antenna which was made of fiberglass and it was melted. Lightning had struck the cb antenna and fried $12,000 dollars worth of electrical components in the semi. The brain box and every sensor on the engine had to be replaced. Funny thing is I was listening to the radio which just happened to be playing REO Speedwagon Riding the Storm Out. AN experience I will never forget.
When I said West Coast, I meant just that - the coast. Please check this map to see how you rate with thunderstorms
I was momentarily stunned (Shocked? Har har) when I thought I saw "Visalia Lightning Explorer", being that I'm originally from there and all.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
1.21 gigawatts? 1.21 gigawatts? Great Scott!
Ok America is not the only place in the world that gets lightning, actually NSW Australia gets some of the best action Check out this link http://www.countryenergy.com.au/stormtrk.htm And click the movie button. Thats what i call a pefect lightning storm
Haha, awesome!
Anywho... no interesting stories here, but there's a neat lightning map here. It shows all of the lightning strikes in the nation for the last three hours. Also, if anyone has a "weatherspeak" dictionary, that'd be great. I do a decent job of interpreting NWS forecasts, but crazy stuff like:
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
... as soon as you tell me where you live, I'm moving somewhere 8,000 miles from there.
About two weeks ago, during an after-school rehearsal of Macbeth, we heard a sharp clap of thunder as the three witches were reciting "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble....". We were startled at first yet were quickly amused at its timing. One of the actors emerged from the dressing room quite pale and said he saw a flash of light streak along one of the walls.
After the rehearsal, I returned to the computer lab, sat down at my PC, and noticed that it was powered down... and it wouldn't power up. I wandered into our LAN/Server/Broom/Tool/Ex-Bathroom closet and discovered that 2 servers, 4 PCs, our SDSL router, our 24-port Switch, and the Ethernet port on the motherboard of 10 new PCs were all dead. The PCI NIC in my PC had a crater in it. Our PBX was toast and the 25 and 50-pair phone cables between buildings were severely damaged as well..
If you'd like to see a short Flash-enabled gallery of the destruction, go here As usual, click on a thumbnail to see a larger image.
A company that is no longer in business installed our punch-down blocks, and they grounded the blocks to a faucet attached to a copper pipe. The person who did the plumbing on the building said that the copper pipe does not travel far before it continues its run as a PVC pipe. The cable and punch-down block installer did not use a true power ground with a 6-ft spike in the ground. We did have lightning arresters on the blocks, but I found the one connected to our SDSL line charred on the floor. It got blown off the wall (one million volts, 200,000 Amps coming through!) The surge traveled over our data network, not through the AC power supplies.
I've also been looking at web sites that indicate that there's no conclusive proof that lighting rods are effective deterrents even though they're recommended in many building codes.
Having fun in Austin,
A Chief Technical Agonizer
p.s. We discovered today that the light board in our auditorium also got nailed. It's like "Close Encounters" in there without the tones, but then again, we haven't fully tested the sound board yet. Who knows what we'll find tomorrow !!!
that this was their first mistake:
The climbers, high on Exum Ridge, were mainly work buddies from the IT department...
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
It was overcast, the temperature was in the low 90's with high humidity and no wind. We were about 35 minutes into the first half when suddenly everyone's hair, both on and off the field began to stick straight up- almost as if they'd been vigorously rubbing balloons across their heads.
I pretty quickly made up my mind that the last place I wanted to be was on this field with nothing high except for the 8 60 foot tall light poles surrounding the field. My departure was delayed, however, by the home team coach. He was insisting that because there was no smell of Ozone, that we were perfectly safe.
I didn't see any reason to try and argue with the guy, so I got in my car and left.
We have weather with a small w... Back east (any east of the coast) they have Weather... (big W)
The humidity is so bad it is like having a wet dog hump your leg all day long.
What an excellent article.
When lightning strikes, God is speaking. Lightning strikes so often in the United States because God is mad. He hates Southerners, born-again Christians, bible-belt Christians, WASP Christians, all Christians. He hates them. He strikes out because he's lost his temper with these stupid people.
When that lady in Tennessee decided to sue Janet Jackson over a black nipple, God got very angry. Tennessee will be very hard hit. God is pissed.
When the Republicans went after Clinton and made a mockery out of the United States, God was wrathful. He will punish the Republicans yet. Maybe with a swarm of locusts.
God doesn't like George W Bush either, or John Ashcroft, but you already figured that out on your own.
Boom boom.
I'm quite surprised nobody has mentioned sprites yet...
I will work to elevate you, just enough to bring you down
The textwraps around on its own. You don't have to put a return in there. Here is how the joke should appear:
Q: Why did the blonde keep stopping then smile during a lightning storm?
A: She thought she was getting her picture taken.
Doesn't that look better than your version? You would have also saved a keystroke because you would have hit the ENTER key one less time.
Also, your joke is hair-colorist, because it misrepresents dumb blondes.
They usually have one of those ball lighting thingees on the ceiling.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I just happened to be looking at a tree when it was struck by lightning. I saw a side of the tree trunk glow red for a fraction of a second when the lightning hit the top of the tree. That sort of energy can cause the water/sap to flash to steam, blowing off the outside of the tree.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Come to Jupiter.
There are lightning discharages here that are larger than your entire planet.
Discharges around what you call "the Great Red Spot" are particularly beautiful.
Wait.
I meant go to Jupiter, not come to Jupiter.
I, of course, have never been there myself, any more than any of you humans have.
Wait.
I meant us humans, not you humans.
Yeah, that's it.
Us humans.
Us humans have never been to Juptier.
Damn, this vocal entry thing isn't working.
Computer, don't hit the submit but
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I've been struck by lightning 5 times, four of thouse times it hurt. All exsept the 4th time when I took my brother to the hospital for his broken leg. I went out side to smoke a sigret when it started to rain I diceded to go in side when I suddenly found my self staring up at the sky with out any feeling in my body. I tried to get up but was unable to move or even breath. I had been struck with so much voltage my heart stoped. You know how freaky it is to be lieing on the ground with out your heart beating. Next thing I rember was staring at a bright white light as I came to. Apprently the defibed me and brought me back. They said I was lucky most people don't survie more then 10 minutes in cartac arreste, I was gone for ~19 minutes. I later found out I was commatosed from lack of O2 and nural truma for about a mounth. I'm just glad to be alive :)
what a story... can't WAIT for the movie...
i was almost hit by lighting on a couple of occasions climbing telephone poles. Every other pole in residential areas is supposed to have thick guage ground wire bonded to the strand, but in most cases that wire is severed at the pole by residents or the bond is corroded enough to be innefective. We had a man die just a few years ago on the pole because of a lighting strike.
As cable and telephone installers we are required to work in the rain and have to wait for the go ahead to wait it out, regardless of how bad it seems out there. We do not get hazard pay, but we do stick together with our radios.
"Screw Them HaHaa, I ain't getting up there right now..."
Some customers are unreasonable about this, doing things like demanding cable TV during a hail storm. Take it easy on the cable/telephone guy, unless he REALLY deservers a hard time.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
Um, unless something is radically different from the last time I was there, it actually sometimes is covered with a nasty brown haze. I was there for a weekend once. On the first day, you could sit in a particular spot and see the hill maybe 1 mile away. On the following day, you could sit in the same spot and look, and as far as you eyes could tell, the hill no longer existed. That was kinda scary.
On the subject of stereotypes, when I moved to (northern) California, I did sort of think lots of people would have surfboards. I finally got over this after a while and totally gave up on the concept that anyone I knew would actually be a real surfer dude, admitting to myself that it was just a silly stereotype. Then we hired someone new at work named Mike, and I shared an office with him, and guess what -- before he got into IT, he was a pro surfer. He came to work early most days so if the surf was good he could skip out at 3 or 4pm and head down to the general area of Santa Cruz to catch some waves. (He always knew whether the surf was good because there was some web site with a webcam, and this was about 7 or 8 years ago when webcams were still mostly a neat new idea.)
Ah so when a severl centimeter thick bolt of lightning hits you you have a good chance of surviving (in pain). But when a couple thousend volts hits you in an electric chair you obviously get knocked unconcious instantly every time, which is of course why it needs to stay on for several minutes...
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Just remember to swing the cage when you get caught, should things go wrong in such a situation.
The part of lightening study that fasinates me is the discovery of sprites,a part of a lightening strike that moves spaceward.
Here is a pic of a sprite.
This is linked to in a longish article. See under Recent Developments.
http://home.earthlink.net/~leon.gandalf
I read a report about a lightning strike that found earth via a glider - IIRC, it travelled from one wingtip to the other via the aileron control linkages. Blew the glider to bits, but both occupants parachuted to safety.
Most worrying part for me (as a pilot or passenger): The test rigs couldn't crank out enough power to replicate the kind of damage seen. And Recommendation No 99-49 It is recommended that the CAA should request serious consideration, during its participation in the current international review of aircraft lightning certification standards, of the fact that energy levels from positive polarity discharges have been shown to greatly exceed those specified in Advisory Circular AC 20-53A, with the associated implications for the certificated lightning protection assurance of existing and future aircraft designs, particularly those which utilise significant amounts of composite material in their primary and control structures. That's worrying!
Read the official AAIB report here. Lots of interesting background info on aircraft certification against lightning strikes.
Yes, the E field across the ground is bad - I knew a caver who was deep inside a cave, and was shocked by the cave wall when a strike hit the ground above.
That's also why you should NOT lie down on the ground to avoid a strike - instead, you should "become a basketball with feet" - curl up into a ball and balance on the balls of your feet, with your feet as close together as possible (if your balance isn't good enough, then put your feet flat). That way, if a strike hits close to your, the potential across the parts of you in contact with the ground will be at a minimum.
That's also why equipment connected to radio towers should, ideally, be in a Faraday cage (a closed conductive container) - an E field will not penetrate a (perfect) Faraday cage, and will remain on the outside. (Of course, that "perfect" bit is the hard bit, so some field will leak inside, but nowhere near as much as without.)
And as a previous poster pointed out, it is the fact that most cars are pretty good Faraday cages that protects you from lightning in a car, not the rubber tires - the lightning jumped an air gap of several hundred metere, what makes you think a few centimeters of rubber are going to stop it?
Of course, if you are in a modern plastic car....
Even worse, imagine taking a strike in a Prius or other electric/hybrid electric car with a significant amount of battery....
www.eFax.com are spammers
sPh
I smile as I hear thunder, as it usually means one or more customers on dialup, with no surge protection on their phone line, coming in with toasted modem, dead computer, etc. Ka-ching!
I thought I had done a good job of protecting my station but took a hit last fall. I had my tower and masts tied together and grounded with a total of 6 8 foot ground rods, attached to the tower with #4 bare copper, being careful not to have any sharp bends in the wire. I ran the coaxes into a patch panel which was grounded by 1 inch heavy flat braided copper to my ground rod system. My equipment was plugged into a heavy duty UPS, which was off and disconnected from the wall, and all my antennas were disconnected. When I took the hit, I heard a loud snap in my radio room, lost my VCR and TV reception, but the lights stayed on.
After the storm I tallied the damage:
1 motherboard fried
1 modem fried
1 VCR Main fuse blown - (was repaired)
1 Yaesu G5400B rotor box - (repaired blown regulator)
1 Ham-M Rotor box - blown fuses (repaired)
1 Astron 50 Amp supply Blown regulator circuit (awaiting repair)
1 Kenwood TS-440 Major damage-may be totalled
1 Fax machine (toast)
Phone Line- Connection was charred at Network Interface. I was switched to a spare pair, but my phone became unusable afterwards when it rained. Verizon has been unwilling/unable to correct the problem. I have since moved into a brand new home next door, and the problem seems to have followed me here as well.
I suspect that lightning found its way in via the rotor control cable or phone line, I am not sure which (perhaps it was both). In any case, it caused a spike which caused my power supply to apply lethal voltage to my TS-440, and other equipment. I will add bulkhead fittings for my rotor controllers when I rebuild my radio room in the coming months.
Bruce N3LSY
I had my camcorder setup so I could grab the still frames. I got this shot right outside my window. http://home.earthlink.net/~leon.gandalf
"Getting hit by lightning is never fun..."
Even if it was SCO?
if a butterfly flaps its wings in sydney, someone is london is going to get pregnant
i'm just saying
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
isn't there something about cars being the safest place to be in a lightning storm? due to that effect (sorry physicists for forgetting the term) that the electrical charge on a metal shell is limited to the outside of the shell... no matter how big the charge?
i've always driven blissfully reassurred through lightning storms because of that effect, but your stories of lightning in cars is causing me to doubt my reassurance, for better or worse!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's stories like this that give the MYTHBUSTERS their jobs. The stars thing at 2:00pm is a joke. And the blades of grass being shot through a telephone pole...LOL.
Read my Sig. And if your sources are you, well then.....
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
According to this flash density map, New Mexico has to get in line behind Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and a handful of other states.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Another amazing video is of a plane getting hit by lightning at a Japanese airport--check it here.
Bottom line: planes can be just like a big hydrometeor from lightning's perspective.
Blades of grass thrown through a telephone pole... Unlikely, if not impossible. What probably actually happened is that the pole was bent by the wind, causing the grain in the wood to momentarily expand, opening a crevasse into which the grass blade found its way. Wind lets up, crevasse snaps shut, and viola: grass 'blown through' apparently hard wood. This is the real explanation for the blades of grass and straw that have been found embedded in trees and poles after tornadic storms. You need a good amount of wind to get this phenomenon, but nowhere near as much as it might initially seem to require.
Cars don't have front quarter panels. They have fenders.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
try Doctor Megavolt as seen at Burning Man
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
How would this effect the famous plans for a space elevator?
In my thirty something years of flying, I had only one direct hit by lightning striking the aircraft. It was on an approach to IND in a B-707, which was frightening all right, but not serious. We were quite few miles from the center of the cell, and the ceiling and visibility were still VFR conditions when it hit. Knocked out our electrical power (Circuit Breakers on the Buss's) but was quickly restored by the FE, landed routinely, cabin all shook up. Another time was in Lockheed Constellation I was flying for Aer Lingus during a 1 year contract. We where picking up static while flying through ice crystals in cloud. Some arcing on the windshield, radios were useless. This was in the prop days when there was no way to fly above the stuff, you had to go through it. All of a sudden, the arcing built up to the point that a huge spark hit us in the nose. A green ball of what I can only call static electricity formed behind the FE's seat, and passed through the closed cockpit door. WEIRD! I could actually feel the charge in my scalp. That was the end of of the cloud, and we broke out into clear WX. Circuit breakers popped all over, essential power was restored, and we kept flying. The FE opened the cockpit door to see how the PAX were doing. What a sight! Most were Priests and Nuns, and the aisle was jammed with them on their knees blessing themselves, and murmuring prayers.
National Geographic chronicled an amazing story of a lightning strike, and rescue, on Grand Teton."
I wonder how long it's going to be before the GOP discovers the meaning of Grand Teton and puts a curtain over it, or renames it after the most recent late president.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
A couple of years ago, I was reading up on lightning due to a personal interest. In particular, I was wondering why victims (common here in Florida) were often described as having their "shoes blown off." This seems like an oddly comic turn to a rather tragic event. The fact is, it does happen and often. The high voltage passing through the skin instantly turns the surface moisture to steam, with explosive results.
Crushing my karma one post at a time.
Damage from lightning can be reduced through careful grounding, but not eliminated. 30,000 Amps is a non-trivial current to play with.
One interesting point is lightning damage while sailing on fresh water the damage is worse than when sailing on salt water!
A long Video with really neat post-lighting photos at: http://www.thomson.ece.ufl.edu/lightning/video.htm l
Some good scientific works at:t ml
0 07/d000007.html
http://www.thomson.ece.ufl.edu/lightning/SGEB17.h
http://www.cdc.gov/nasd/docs/d000001-d000100/d000
Ben Franklin, that great lightning pioneer, had
a cool device that directly used lightning to
ring bells...