Yesterday afternoon (June 27) i was out jogging in the neighbourhoods around my part of Baltimore, MD, when a typical summer thunderstorm hit. The rain came down in buckets, and there was much lightning and thunder. I wasn’t too worried about being hit by lightning, as i was running on urban and suburban streets that contained plenty of objects that were taller and more lightning-friendly than little old me, but i did start thinking about the issue.
My question is: If i had been in open spaces where a strike on my person was more likely, would the fact that i was moving, rather than standing still, have reduced my chances of getting hit? I seem to remember from high school science that lightning results from some sort of charge discrepancy that that builds up in the air and on the ground, so my theory was that a moving body would be less likely to exhibit the characteristics that might attract a bolt of lightning. Is this correct, or do i have the physics wrong?
Take a look at a bug zapper some time. Note how well the technique of moving works to prevent bugs from getting zapped. Now consider that lightning is basically just a really, really big bug zapper, and you unfortunately are the bug.
You’d be as likely to get hit by lightning moving or not since you might just happen to run to the spot the moment lightning decides to strike that spot. The chances seem pretty slim but a fair number of people (more than you might guess) get struck by lightning every year. Sometimes you may have forewarning of a strike noticed by your hair starting to stand on end. If you can’t immediately dodge inside (i.e. you are standing next to a door) then the advice I heard is to throw yourself to the ground and lay out as flat as possible. I don’t know if that really helps but given the situation your options are limited so you do what you can.
Oddly, I heard a statistic once that said 9 out of 10 people struck by lightning are male. The scientists had no answer as to why this would be so but they speculated that it is because women are smarter. That is to say, a big storm rolls in and women are generally smart enough to get inside while men may stay outside to look at the pretty lightning.