> Lightning also dramatically altered his personality. “It made me a mean, ornery son of a bitch. I’m short-tempered. Nothing is fun anymore. I am just not the same person my wife married”
Damages to the nerve system and the brain. I guess this process is similar to stressing a piece of analog electronics above its absolute maximum ratings, like overheat, overvoltage, or ESD. The device may still work to an extent, but performance is degraded, and its parameters have been permanently altered.
Well not necessarily, in many cases tree stuck (and burned to rather beautiful pile of ashes) can be an insignificant one deep in the valley, while the ones on top of the hill will keep standing.
Or folks getting struck through open window in their room, while building has proper protection. We all have seen the pictures of real lightning, never straight path, rather sum of local optimums which may end up being a rather un-optimal path overall
Not necessarily, lightning is an extreme electrical phenomenon. I'm no way an expert, but from what I've read...
1. Lightning doesn't have to hit the tallest object. Electricity doesn't flow into the lowest-impedance path either. It's just probability at work - lightning is more likely to hit the tallest object, and when an object gets a hit, more current flows into the lowest-impedance path, but other path will receive their shares. "Electricity finds the path of least resistance" is only a rule-of-thumb when the resistance of one path is two order-of-magnitude smaller than other path, then approximately 99% of the energy is applied to the short circuit. But when you have a lot of different path with impedance of similar order-of-magnitude, every path will receive some energy.
If the object is a lightning protection system, it has incrediblly low impedance than other objects, so it will do its best to redirect all energy to ground and ensure that the probability of hitting other objections is very low, but still, if there's an unintended high impedance path within the protected system (e.g. two large metal structures are grounded separately, but not connected with a think metal bar, a voltage difference can develop between the two), then some energy won't be redirected to ground as intended and will attempt to flow through other objects with lower impedance, and it'll destroy other objects along the way. It's why we still see damages from time to time.
Worse, in nature there's no such conductor designed for lightning protection, all objects are vulnerable, it's just some are a bit more vulnerable to others, like the tallest tree.
2. Lightning doesn't have to hit you directly to cause injury. Recall Electrical Safety 101, if you connect a 110V/220V "hot" wire to a grounded object, the low impedance ground will keep the voltage of such object low to ensure safety. But if it's a HV line, it's another story, the Earth itself is not a perfect conductor, the point closer to the voltage source will have less resistance, thus a voltage gradient forms, there can be a significant voltage difference on Earth between your legs.
Lightning depends on the electric field exceeding the dielectric insulation of the air. Some random charge floating around eventually forms a current, and that is the "random" path the lightning bolt takes to discharge. Lightning rods are designed with very sharp tips, the high curvature of which leads to a higher local electric field. Thus, a lightning rod works to discharge to ground an area of air around the point and prevent a larger buildup of voltage.
No, this is a common misconception. Consider the difference in electrical potential between two trees that are 35 feet tall, and one that's 20 feet tall. Is there a difference? Yes, but it's not a big one, and when you consider the overall path length from the cloud to ground you're talking about a miniscule difference.
Additionally, there are other confounding variables. Taller trees are typically older, and have larger root systems. Maybe they're better grounded, relative to younger trees, and so they are better pathways. We just don't know enough yet to say for certain why lightning strikes where it does.
The only thing I will say, is that if you're outside and have nowhere to go, the best place is to be in a dense forest, but not close to any particular trees. The odds of you being directly struck in a forest are incredibly small.
> The only thing I will say, is that if you're outside and have nowhere to go, the best place is to be in a dense forest, but not close to any particular trees.
Your phrasing made me smile, because I could imagine Terry Pratchet writing the same words. It would be some joke about how you needed to stand near some tree, but no particular tree.
Something I learned recently was that lying on the ground might seem like a good idea, but it isn't the safest position. It is thought, though I think the science is kind of out still, that the safest position is basically squatting and holding your knees. IIRC, lying down increases the chance that a near strike will still send current over you.
As somebody who has not been struck, but been damn close to a strike twice, I'd like to note that the folk wisdom that your hair stands up (like when you get goosebumps, I guess? Not like an Einstein picture?) before a strike and gives you some kind of warning is utterly false. What you're supposed to do when so warned is is unclear, but nevermind that.
How close is damn close?
This summer I was doing some work on a house when a storm rolled in. Went inside and waited out some heavy wind, lightning and rain. 10 minutes after the rain let up, the guy I was looking at and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and figured we'd get back to work. I went out to the patio and was pulling the tarp off the tablesaw when lightning struck. I reflexively count after a strike (I spend a lot of time in the woods), and the interval between the lightning and the thunder was long enough to register a lightning strike, but not to begin counting.
Needless to say, we went back inside, packed up our stuff there, and started loading the truck. As we were doing so, a fire truck came by inquiring where we might find a nearby address. Knowing that address and the address of the house we were working on let me determine that we were about 80m away from the strike using Google maps.
That's the second closest I've been. The closest was on the Appalachian Trail in 2010. I ducked into a shelter in the Shenandoahs to wait out a storm. The rain tapered off and stopped, and I figured I'd shove on for a few more miles before calling it a day (around 3:00 PM). As I was about to leave the shelter, lightning struck close enough that the lightning and thunder registered in my brain essentially simultaneously. Best estimate based on this summer's experience? 30m, maybe less?
In neither case did my hair stand up. If you need to be closer to the location of the impending strike to observe the phenomenon, I reckon you're pretty well boned.
If you're looking to not get struck by lightning in the first place, which seems advisable based on TFA, I'd suggest that the notion you're going to have some kind of warning before a strike is nonsense.
I would similarly note that just because it seems like the storm has passed doesn't mean it has. In high school marching band, the rule was that a football game couldn't resume until an hour after the last lightning. It seemed ridiculous at the time. Now it seems well-founded.
The hair thing is a short range effect: if you were within say 10m then maybe. It's not intended for people with a mile or so.
As you say, if you're close enough to feel it, you will likely get a face full of the tree or whatever it hit before you have time to recognize and react...
I’ll confirm your experience with one even closer.
In HS I ran on our cross country team. One day at practice (after school), we had only made it less than a mile from the school when we heard a big thunderstorm coming and turned around to head back.
The storm came on super quickly, we were inundated with water, thunder all around; we picked up the pace to get back to school faster.
We were just a couple blocks from the school when lightning struck on the other side of the street. There was zero pause between lightning & thunder, it was simultaneous. It must have been about 8 meters away, or less.
We were all scared shitless & the run turned into a sprint. We all made it back fine.
There was no warning. When the lightning struck I could see it in my peripheral vision, and simultaneously also saw an electric arc from the sidewalk to the bottom of my front running foot. There was a tingly sensation but I only remember feeling that after the strike.
Also, it was LOUD, as in I couldn’t hear well for the rest of the day, and my ears were ringing for a week.
Hair standing up in proximity to a thunderstorm is a real phenomenon [1], and it happened to a friend of mine while canoeing on a lake. It does not necessarily mean that you are about to be struck, and it is not, apparently, commonly reported by people who are struck, or were close to a strike.
Perhaps it requires an unusual combination of low humidity in the proximity of a thunderhead?
My closest one was a tree outside my window while I was inside with an opened window (maybe 7m). And I certainly felt some sort of static electricity before, paired with a slight smell of ozone (how a laser printer can smell when you print a lot).
Boom and it was bright and incredibly loud. Nothing happened to me, but the tree burned on the inside.
Please stop, 30m is not close. This is advice given in wilderness first aid training for possible warning of being hit not a 30m miss.
I'm going to trust them over you.
*edit: should also say that in my WFA they said you may or may not feel it, and if you do feel it you may or may not have enough time to react to it. The only reaction you really have is "lightning position" which is a tight ball of a crouch. Lying down completely is thought to be more dangerous, so don't go diving.
Also I've seen lightning about 30m off as well, it struck the mouth of a wooded trail I was considering exiting, my eyes were focused on the exact spot it struck. Hesitation probably saved me, though it was blinding and deafening. Thunder that close is really something else, absolutely the most violent sound I've heard in person.
I've heard the same advice about crouching, but have never been in a position where I've tried it. When canoeing, the advice I've heard is get to shore and crouch on your PFD for additional insulation.
For sake of comparison, The article says a lightning strike releases about 500 MJ of energy. Wikipedia says a "standard" stick of dynamite contains about 1 MJ of energy[0]. In my estimation standing 30m from the (very rough) equivalent 500 sticks of dynamite going off counts as damn close.
I realize this is a very rough comparison, but I'd guess that it's surely within an order of magnitude or two for comparison purposes. Joules are joules, but how they're released might be wildly different, we're way outside the realm of my expertise. I wouldn't want to be 30m from 50 sticks of dynamite going off, or even 5.
I don't know how the sound would compare between dynamite, but I agree with your observation that a lightning strike at 30m is a hell of a noise.
Yeah I mean 30m is close from the perspective of something that ridiculous happening, but my point is the phenomenon of electrons moving to the point that you can actually sense it happening is localized to path of the lightning strike. Hence 30m is not close.
I'm trying to be direct, this person put out a paragraph of bad advice based on anecdotal (and not applicable) evidence while the relevant professionals and education material disagree.
I was about 6m away from a boy killed by a lightning strike at the 1977 US Boy Scouts Jamboree. I did feel the static electricity on my skin and my ears rang for a few minutes.
I'm gonna join the "I've been closer" crowd. Twice, actually. I was outside in a storm when a tree was hit by lightning about 10 feet from me. The tree was split down the middle and rained debris all around me. A blue flame burned briefly and then disappeared. It was so close that the concussive force felt like being hit in the chest with a bat. Another time, I was standing on wet ground when lightning struck about 100 feet away. I felt the jolt of electricity through my shoes. Scared the crap out of me.
I did not feel my hair standing up in either case. But neither of these would have hit me so it may not be relevant.
I can confirm that hair stands up on end when conditions are ripe for a strike. I have had it happen. Particularly for those with thin, wispy air, it was really sticking up. We got out of there fast. So I would say the folk wisdom is not utterly false in that there are times when it does happen and in some of those there is enough warning to get away, but I certainly would not count on it.
In another incident, I was within 100m of a lightning strike (with no warning). Similar to what others below said, the thing I remember most was just how loud it was. One person was killed, 10 hospitalized. A number of the victims were blinded temporarily (measured in hours not minutes).
I guess I'll chime in on being closer to strikes. In case you don't know how a strike occurs, as the charges build up and the field starts having enough potential to exceed the breakdown voltage of the air, little "feelers" develop, extending both from the cloud and objects on the ground. When two connect, if you are close enough, you can here what sounds like a very loud click, immediately followed by the "explosion" of thunder. More like a blast/explosion that what you would hear from farther away.
Also, look in to "ground potential rise", which I learned all about after a lightning strike in my yard (while I was standing on the second floor of my house). Basically, the charge dissipates in the ground around a strike. This means that radially from the strike outward there is a voltage potential. And of course if you connect two points across the potential with less resistance than the ground, you get current flow. Incidentally, this is why you keep your feet as close together as possible if caught outside in a storm. And of course crouch so you aren't the tallest thing around.
Getting struck while inside a car is much less dangerous. The metal of the car creates a poor but still useful Faraday cage around you, which means the bulk of the current does not pass through your body [0].
This reads like modern day food recipe sites. While the stories are great, I'm not sure it ever really tells us how to survive a lightning strike. The closest were the following two passages:
After ~10k characters:
> The best advice for people who find themselves outside during a lightning storm is simply to get inside, either a home or a vehicle. Yet even buildings aren’t completely impervious to lightning strikes. You’ll want to stay off the telephone, out of the shower, and away from sinks. Lightning can pass through landlines, plumbing—metal pipes and faucets—and all manner of electrical wiring.
And after another ~10k characters:
> The evidence suggests that lightning injuries are, for the most part, injuries to the brain, the nervous system, and the muscles. Lightning can ravage or kill cells, but it can also leave a trail of much subtler damage. Cooper and other researchers have speculated that chronic issues are the result of lightning scrambling each individual survivor’s unique internal circuitry
In school I learned that if you are a conductive person, you are more likely to be struck, but also more likely to survive as the lightning would go through you faster.
The best way to survive, of course, is to avoid a lightning strike.
Oh, and remember that rubber tires and rubber-soled shoes provide virtually no protection from lightning. In fact, many victims of lightning strikes are farmers in open fields riding tractors with rubber tires.
And often metal farming implements dragging the ground, and a vehicle that sometimes makes your head the highest thing from the ground. Maybe not the best high level evidence that tires on a car don't help.
Its odd the the old misconception of lightning as a simple electrostatic discharge still reigns. Electrical breakdown in air happens around 3 MV/meter. The potentials generated in clouds are very large but not remotely close to what would be required to reach the ground. Moreover, slow motion footage that can be found anywhere clearly shows branching tendrils descending very slowly, followed by the rapid return stroke after the line of plasma reaches the ground. I have heard that part of the mechanism that ionizes air and propagates the tendrils involves production of high intensity x-rays. I wonder if this could have health effects in itself.
Sure, but the air isn't ionized before the lightning ionizes it. In any case, it's moot since the lightning could bypass the rubber by going through the air next to it.
Fine, but sitting on a metal seat/floorboards propped up as the highest point on a grounded big metal object is basically a human lightning rod. Comparing that to a car isn't compelling.
That's different than laying in a ditch or sitting in a car. At least in the car, the body is higher off the ground, and a lower resistance path than you. Perhaps a convertible, open top, bare metal floor with a flat tire might be comparable.
Rubber tires and soles don't protect from a strike, no, but they do offer at least some protection from the step potential[0] a nearby strike would cause. Of course with everything being wet from the rain and all the protection is most likely rather limited.
My boss after high school got struck by lightning while golfing, when he came back to work he had scars all over his body where the metal jewelry had melted and fused into his skin.
Crouch on your toes, put your hands over your ears. Being as low as possible, and keeping only your toes on the ground rather than the rest of your feet, makes your body a less useful (hence less likely) conduit to the ground.
If lightning's about to strike you, you can feel a brief warning tingle.
Keep your feet together as well to make sure the voltage difference between your feet is as low as possible in case the strike is nearby but not a direct hit.
45 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 95.7 ms ] threadDamages to the nerve system and the brain. I guess this process is similar to stressing a piece of analog electronics above its absolute maximum ratings, like overheat, overvoltage, or ESD. The device may still work to an extent, but performance is degraded, and its parameters have been permanently altered.
Or folks getting struck through open window in their room, while building has proper protection. We all have seen the pictures of real lightning, never straight path, rather sum of local optimums which may end up being a rather un-optimal path overall
The best summary of lightning safety I've ever read!
1. Lightning doesn't have to hit the tallest object. Electricity doesn't flow into the lowest-impedance path either. It's just probability at work - lightning is more likely to hit the tallest object, and when an object gets a hit, more current flows into the lowest-impedance path, but other path will receive their shares. "Electricity finds the path of least resistance" is only a rule-of-thumb when the resistance of one path is two order-of-magnitude smaller than other path, then approximately 99% of the energy is applied to the short circuit. But when you have a lot of different path with impedance of similar order-of-magnitude, every path will receive some energy.
If the object is a lightning protection system, it has incrediblly low impedance than other objects, so it will do its best to redirect all energy to ground and ensure that the probability of hitting other objections is very low, but still, if there's an unintended high impedance path within the protected system (e.g. two large metal structures are grounded separately, but not connected with a think metal bar, a voltage difference can develop between the two), then some energy won't be redirected to ground as intended and will attempt to flow through other objects with lower impedance, and it'll destroy other objects along the way. It's why we still see damages from time to time.
Worse, in nature there's no such conductor designed for lightning protection, all objects are vulnerable, it's just some are a bit more vulnerable to others, like the tallest tree.
2. Lightning doesn't have to hit you directly to cause injury. Recall Electrical Safety 101, if you connect a 110V/220V "hot" wire to a grounded object, the low impedance ground will keep the voltage of such object low to ensure safety. But if it's a HV line, it's another story, the Earth itself is not a perfect conductor, the point closer to the voltage source will have less resistance, thus a voltage gradient forms, there can be a significant voltage difference on Earth between your legs.
[0] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/184374/why-do-li...
Additionally, there are other confounding variables. Taller trees are typically older, and have larger root systems. Maybe they're better grounded, relative to younger trees, and so they are better pathways. We just don't know enough yet to say for certain why lightning strikes where it does.
The only thing I will say, is that if you're outside and have nowhere to go, the best place is to be in a dense forest, but not close to any particular trees. The odds of you being directly struck in a forest are incredibly small.
Your phrasing made me smile, because I could imagine Terry Pratchet writing the same words. It would be some joke about how you needed to stand near some tree, but no particular tree.
Golly I wish he were still writing.
How close is damn close?
This summer I was doing some work on a house when a storm rolled in. Went inside and waited out some heavy wind, lightning and rain. 10 minutes after the rain let up, the guy I was looking at and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and figured we'd get back to work. I went out to the patio and was pulling the tarp off the tablesaw when lightning struck. I reflexively count after a strike (I spend a lot of time in the woods), and the interval between the lightning and the thunder was long enough to register a lightning strike, but not to begin counting.
Needless to say, we went back inside, packed up our stuff there, and started loading the truck. As we were doing so, a fire truck came by inquiring where we might find a nearby address. Knowing that address and the address of the house we were working on let me determine that we were about 80m away from the strike using Google maps.
That's the second closest I've been. The closest was on the Appalachian Trail in 2010. I ducked into a shelter in the Shenandoahs to wait out a storm. The rain tapered off and stopped, and I figured I'd shove on for a few more miles before calling it a day (around 3:00 PM). As I was about to leave the shelter, lightning struck close enough that the lightning and thunder registered in my brain essentially simultaneously. Best estimate based on this summer's experience? 30m, maybe less?
In neither case did my hair stand up. If you need to be closer to the location of the impending strike to observe the phenomenon, I reckon you're pretty well boned.
If you're looking to not get struck by lightning in the first place, which seems advisable based on TFA, I'd suggest that the notion you're going to have some kind of warning before a strike is nonsense.
I would similarly note that just because it seems like the storm has passed doesn't mean it has. In high school marching band, the rule was that a football game couldn't resume until an hour after the last lightning. It seemed ridiculous at the time. Now it seems well-founded.
As you say, if you're close enough to feel it, you will likely get a face full of the tree or whatever it hit before you have time to recognize and react...
In HS I ran on our cross country team. One day at practice (after school), we had only made it less than a mile from the school when we heard a big thunderstorm coming and turned around to head back.
The storm came on super quickly, we were inundated with water, thunder all around; we picked up the pace to get back to school faster.
We were just a couple blocks from the school when lightning struck on the other side of the street. There was zero pause between lightning & thunder, it was simultaneous. It must have been about 8 meters away, or less.
We were all scared shitless & the run turned into a sprint. We all made it back fine.
There was no warning. When the lightning struck I could see it in my peripheral vision, and simultaneously also saw an electric arc from the sidewalk to the bottom of my front running foot. There was a tingly sensation but I only remember feeling that after the strike.
Also, it was LOUD, as in I couldn’t hear well for the rest of the day, and my ears were ringing for a week.
Perhaps it requires an unusual combination of low humidity in the proximity of a thunderhead?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYq41HtUWWs
Boom and it was bright and incredibly loud. Nothing happened to me, but the tree burned on the inside.
> that your hair stands up ... is utterly false
Please stop, 30m is not close. This is advice given in wilderness first aid training for possible warning of being hit not a 30m miss.
I'm going to trust them over you.
*edit: should also say that in my WFA they said you may or may not feel it, and if you do feel it you may or may not have enough time to react to it. The only reaction you really have is "lightning position" which is a tight ball of a crouch. Lying down completely is thought to be more dangerous, so don't go diving.
Also I've seen lightning about 30m off as well, it struck the mouth of a wooded trail I was considering exiting, my eyes were focused on the exact spot it struck. Hesitation probably saved me, though it was blinding and deafening. Thunder that close is really something else, absolutely the most violent sound I've heard in person.
For sake of comparison, The article says a lightning strike releases about 500 MJ of energy. Wikipedia says a "standard" stick of dynamite contains about 1 MJ of energy[0]. In my estimation standing 30m from the (very rough) equivalent 500 sticks of dynamite going off counts as damn close.
I realize this is a very rough comparison, but I'd guess that it's surely within an order of magnitude or two for comparison purposes. Joules are joules, but how they're released might be wildly different, we're way outside the realm of my expertise. I wouldn't want to be 30m from 50 sticks of dynamite going off, or even 5.
I don't know how the sound would compare between dynamite, but I agree with your observation that a lightning strike at 30m is a hell of a noise.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite#Form
I did not feel my hair standing up in either case. But neither of these would have hit me so it may not be relevant.
Also, look in to "ground potential rise", which I learned all about after a lightning strike in my yard (while I was standing on the second floor of my house). Basically, the charge dissipates in the ground around a strike. This means that radially from the strike outward there is a voltage potential. And of course if you connect two points across the potential with less resistance than the ground, you get current flow. Incidentally, this is why you keep your feet as close together as possible if caught outside in a storm. And of course crouch so you aren't the tallest thing around.
Is it actually more dangerous than driving a car for that same amount of time?
[0] https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/cars-can-be-safe...
How to survive the aftermath of a lightning strike
After ~10k characters:
> The best advice for people who find themselves outside during a lightning storm is simply to get inside, either a home or a vehicle. Yet even buildings aren’t completely impervious to lightning strikes. You’ll want to stay off the telephone, out of the shower, and away from sinks. Lightning can pass through landlines, plumbing—metal pipes and faucets—and all manner of electrical wiring.
And after another ~10k characters:
> The evidence suggests that lightning injuries are, for the most part, injuries to the brain, the nervous system, and the muscles. Lightning can ravage or kill cells, but it can also leave a trail of much subtler damage. Cooper and other researchers have speculated that chronic issues are the result of lightning scrambling each individual survivor’s unique internal circuitry
I think it was just a poor choice of a title.
It's highbrow clickbait title with decent content
Oh, and remember that rubber tires and rubber-soled shoes provide virtually no protection from lightning. In fact, many victims of lightning strikes are farmers in open fields riding tractors with rubber tires.
It's the metal cage of the car that provides lighting a more conductive path around instead of through you.
That's different than laying in a ditch or sitting in a car. At least in the car, the body is higher off the ground, and a lower resistance path than you. Perhaps a convertible, open top, bare metal floor with a flat tire might be comparable.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_potential_rise
If lightning's about to strike you, you can feel a brief warning tingle.