An hour ago I was leaving work uncommongly early, since there was still plenty of daylight I walked out by the back road, that it´s almost rural with lush vegetation and tall grassland on one side.
I was admiring a remarkable thunderstorm cloud getting closer, it wasn´t quite on top of me yet, there was clear sky above, but I could see the towering cumulus nimbus with an impressive round anvil on top.
I was thus absorved when a bright flash strook down on my right accompanied, not followed, by a loud cracking, I actually saw the lightning hit, I´m not sure about the distance but it was less than 30 meters, in open ground. I got a bit alarmed, specially when after 20 seconds a second lightning struck about the same distance to my left; at this point my legs got somewhat briskier than before.
I reached the bus stop under the expressway without further divine bolt action, thank goodness.
As a lesson learned I take that it really doesn´t matter if there are, actually, no clouds directly above, lightnings can gap some distance and nail down unsuspecting victims.
Now it´s raining hard outside, plenty of lightning too, looks nice framed on a window.
If you can locate the exact spot where the strike hit the ground (wait until it stops first), you might be able to unearth a fulgurite (although it will take a bit of care to get it out of the ground without breaking.
Holy crap. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen lightning hit, and certainly never so close to me. I had no idea that lightning could cover a distance to strike, but I usually go by the sound rule. Anything less than a couple seconds from strike to clap has me heading for shelter. Come to think of it, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen a good lightning storm. I agree that they are quite pretty when viewed from indoors.
[nitpick]Isn’t it cumulonimbus? :runs off to check wikipedia: Yep, good ol’ fifth grade science coming into play right there. I must not be as old as I thought :)[/nitpick]
BTW, can anyone speak to what the best thing to do when caught in the open is? When I was young, I seem to remember something about being as low as possible, so you should lie down, but then more recently I seem to recall reading something about that being bad. Is there an official “lightning position?”
Note to myself: scratch Malacandra out from the Xmas list.
Well, that´d be difficult since I think it hit somewhere on the semiflooded plot on the back of the office, it´s like 100 meters wide with grass as tall as my chest inhabited, among other things by large Water Monitos. I´m not going in there to dig up a chunk of molten sand, thank you very much.
From a standing up position, crouch down slightly, bend forwards keeping your balance until your head is between your knees, now bend your torso back as much as possible and kiss your ass goodbye.
I got nothin´ but I´d hazard the guess that laying down is not a good idea since at least, while standing up, you´ve got your shoes to isolete you from a near miss discharge on the ground.
I’m not sure that taunting is a good idea, but trying to get Zeus to change his mind about anything seems to have been pretty much like talking to a brick wall - so, I’m in the school of thought that the incompetent sodomist might as well get mocked, since it’s really unlikely to make things worse.
I’ve heard it said that lightning strikes on people are preceded by odd buzzing sensations for a second or two and that it’s possible for someone to react by diving flat on the ground and placing interlocked hands over the head, with the elbows touching the ground.
I think it is true that lightning strikes are preceded by leader currents, so there might be some element of truth to this, but it still seems a bit fanciful to me.
I actually saw a program the other day about lightning, and there is an official lighning position espoused by the Lightning Institute if you get caught in the open without shelter: Crouch down as low as you can go, bend your head forward to make yourself a ball, and cover your ears to prevent aural damage from the noise.
And yes, lightning can travel in clear air; according to the show, it’s apparently been tracked as far as 30 miles before striking the ground. :eek:
Pretty sure that would be a bad idea. Earth has considerable resistance so that voltage drops off quickly over a short distance. Which means that you have a voltage differential over which current can flow. You want to minimize the current flowing through your body, so you want your body to contact as small a patch of ground as possible. Crouching with legs close together is much better than lying flat on the ground.
I’ve been hit twice- the first time, yes, I “felt” the charge building up. Actually, I saw the hair on my friend’s head standing up, and realized that the static I was feeling was probably due to the storm we were watching. I pushed him down, and was on my way downward when I got hit.
It turns out that what I did probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do- the human body conducts electricity better than the ground (especially the dry ground we were on) does. It’s best to present as small a target as possible while keeping the minimum amount of contact with the ground- so, crouch with your legs together. Reportedly, cows have been killed by lightning strikes in their nearby area, simply because they’ve got four legs spread over a wider area, and the charge travels through their bodies.
The second time, I was completely soaked, and I didn’t get any sort of advanced warning.
Yes, there are cobras, they hang out wherever they might find food (rats), usually near grain. When we lived there, we lived in Thana City, near Bang Na Trat Highway kilometer 14. This is a pretty open area, and I was warned on several occasions against just walking through fields and vacant lots.
Congrats, Lightnin’, on surviving it not just once, but twice.
Alice Hoffman wrote Ice Queen, a novel in which the protag has been struck by lightning. She seems to have done a lot of research in the completely different ways lightning strikes can affect people. Have you read it, and did any of it ring true?
And Ale, congrats to you on your escape. Though if I had a choice of lightning, monitor lizards, or cobras, I might pick the lightning…
