Okay, I know they tell you that you shouldn’t swim when it is storming out but I want to know why. If lighting hit the lake would you get electrocuted or would the water just disperse the shock enough throughout the water so you wouldn’t feel anything. Please give me some insight into this.
Water serves as a conductor for the lightning bolt on its way to the earth, its ultimate destination. If you are in the water and happen to be somewhere along the point of conduction, you are toast. The water will also help disperse the energy of the bolt, and there is every reason to believe that it forks out in water the same way it does in the air althought I suspect pictures of lightning doing this under water would be a pretty rare find just because of the environment. Because of this dispersion, you will be severely affected if you are within 10-20 meters of the point of the strike, which is why you are ordered out of a swimming pool if lightning threatens. Exactly how you will react is tough to say, there are too many variables such as proximity & energy released by the bolt.
You should not be in the bath or shower during a lightning storm more because of the network of metal pipes that snake through your house that can act as a lightning rod. The fact that you are standing in water at the end of that lightning rod only makes it worse.
Also if you’re out in the middle of a relatively calm lake, your bobbing head is the highest thing around. (Possibly for miles around in a big enough lake.) That’s just asking to be struck by lightning.
Theory is great, but has anyone ever heard of anyone in a lake (or swimming pool) ever actually being killed by lightning?
I would suspect the incidents to be few because we’ve all got it hammered into our brains to get out of the water when there’s a storm a-brewin’
On the few occasions when it does happen it’s probably out at sea or in a lake and by the time the body is found, cause of death is ruled as drowning. If you are in the water and aren’t actually struck by the bolt but just stunned, then you probably did drown. Same thing in the bath tub… they figure you probably hit your head & drown. With a nasty bump on your head & water in your lungs, why suspect anything else?
I thought when lightning hit earth (as opposed to just snaking through the sky) the direction of travel was axually UPWARD from a point on the Earth to the sky–meaning the bolt wouldn’t fork out once it “hit” the water, but instead travel from a point on the water’s surface (say that swimmer’s head) into the clouds.
Just a thought…
Lightning can strike from the sky to the Earth or vice versa. I have seen dramatic photos of lightning forking up from the ground to some point in the clouds. It’s complex actually, but the whole thing is started by something called a stepped leader, so called because it is a negative electrical charge resembling zig-zagging segments or steps. They originate in clouds & reach down about 200 ft. When a leader gets close to a more positive point, a positive surge called a streamer comes reaching out of the ground to meet it. The leader & the streamer create a channel. Electrical current surges through this channel, superheating the air around it. The superheated air expands very fast, creating the sound we hear as thunder.
Years ago in my communications class my professor was often fond of saying that lightning can do whatever the hell it wants. As students, we were bent on coming up with some sure-fire lightning arrestor to protect transmitters when lightning hits the tower. However after being on the repair end of the business for many years now, I tend to agree with him as I have seen many a surge protector blown to hell right along with whatever device it was supposedly protecting.