Lightning strikes

[Globalti]

My sister got struck in her tent in the Pyrenees. It went down the pole, through the frame of the boyfriend's daughter's camp bed, through a tin of Brillo pads and into the second pole. The Brillo pads were fused into a smoking mass.

 

[Joe24]

With the few arials we have up on the house, it all has to be unplugged as soon as there is thunder. Where we were camping at the weekend is ontop of a huge hill. We saw the lightening storm coming in for us. Luckily it pretty much missed us.
A few bolts here when we got home and that was it, nothing good

 

[yenrod]

eARTHQUAKES AND EVERYTHING? YEAH....

 

[Danny]

Was speaking to a friend about this yesterday who reckoned that when lightening strikes you get some kind of electrical currents coming up from the ground to meet it.

He believed that cars never get hit by lightening because their rubber tyres prevent these currents coming up from the ground, and thought that the rubber on bike tyres might provide the same protection.

 

[Night Train]

In electrical terms IIRC the electrons go from the ground to the cloud.

Also, on the ground there can be a voltage differential from the strike point radiating outwards so animals like cattle standing nearby will get a voltage difference between their front a rear legs that can kill them.

 

[Globalti]

You are safe in a car because the metal bodywork forms a Faradic cage around you, as has been demonstrated many times on TV. I believe pylon workers wear a flexible conducting mesh suit for the same reason.

 

[ColinJ]

In electrical terms IIRC the electrons go from the ground to the cloud.

Also, on the ground there can be a voltage differential from the strike point radiating outwards so animals like cattle standing nearby will get a voltage difference between their front a rear legs that can kill them.

My dad witnessed that happen once! He saw a farmer standing in the middle of a herd of cows when a bolt of lightning hit the ground nearby - the cows all dropped down dead, but the farmer was okay, except for worrying about the cows of course...!

Another time, when my dad was younger, some teenagers were caught out in a thunderstorm in the Abbey Fields in Kenilworth. They took shelter under a tree, you know, exactly what we are told not ro do... Lightning hit the tree and vapourised its sap, causing it to explode. At least one of the kids was killed by tree shrapnel. Take a look at what lightning did to this tree and you'll see how that could happen .