Hi evereybody! This morning there was a rather spectacular electric storm here in The Hague.
I was going to work in my car when lightning struck a house right as I was driving next to it. Holy FUCK, was that scary!! There was an almighty flash of light, and the most horrendously loud noise I’ve ever heard. I was so shocked (hah…) and scared that I almost lost control of my car; fortunately there was not much traffic. The flash was so bright that I had afterimages for a little while.
I estimate that lightning fell not more than about 10-15 m away from me. The house looked OK afterwards; I guess that it had a lightning rod installed.
Has anybody else here had lightning striking close by? Mind sharing your experiences?
Yeah, during monsoons in Vietnam back in 1967. Happened twice, actually. The first time, the breakfast I was eating when in several directions, especially because at first I didn’t know if it was lightning or incoming rounds. The second time, I was sitting on a concrete walk underneath an awning roof. The strike was so close that I found myself on my feet without remembering getting up.
I was on the jetway boarding a plane in Denver, I was about 4 people from the door of the plane and suddenly there was a loud explosion. We were all looking around trying to figure out what happened, the guy in front of me couldn’t hear very well because of the noise, lots of confusion.
This is what they told us:
The lightning hit the corner of the jetway (again, this is what they told us).
Some of the electronics on the plane got knocked out (like the stuff controlling the AC or something). (this part is confusing, if it hit the jetway, where is there a connection to the plane?)
The flight was delayed for about an hour while they fixed something. The guys hearing came back but he had a lot of ringing.
The main powerline for the chemical plant where I work comes into the plant at a cinderblock shed where the controls for a foam fire-suppression system are housed. It’s a bit of a lightning-attractor.
I was in a building next door to this during a thunderstorm, going to look out the window while explaining this to someone else just as we were rattled by an enormous BOOM and flash out the window. It was a bit unnerving.
… But not as unnerving as for the two guys who had ducked into the shed to avoid the rain, only to have the fire-suppression system in the same hut get hit by that lightning. And set afire. All they recalled was the noise. And nearly pooping their pants.
We’re only half-joking now when a storm rolls through asking “… is anyone in the foam shed?”
When we lived in FL, a tree in our yard was hit - maybe 30’ from the house? Bark flew in every direction and, of course, it scared the beedoobies outta me. The bits of bark that fell on the paved area left what looked like blood stains. And, yeah, it was loud.
Lightning once struk the house that I was in probably no more than 30 feet from me once. It probably doesn’t count, though, because I was too young to remember it, being a 2nd trimester fetus. The house survived with minor damage, and it made the local newspaper (the article clipping is still around somewhere.)
Other than that, I’ve on more than one occasion had lightning hit so close to the house that it has caused large “pinging” sparks of static electricity to jump from (or two) objects in the room around me–I hear a massive boom and simultaneously see the sparks–once off a doorknob and once off a stove, for instance. Had to be really close for that to happen.
I’ve experienced ball lightning, within 2 feet of me.
I was about 10 years old, and sitting in the kitchen with my mom and aunt. There was a storm outside. All of a sudden, a red-hot ball came through the window and shot between me and my aunt, and zoomed across the room, disappearing behind the refrigerator.
Our house was struck by lightning. It hit the TV antenna, which was mounted on the chimney. At the time, we were in our (upstairs) bedroom/bathroom getting ready for work, so it was probably 10-20’ over our heads.
Fortunately, very little damage to our house. It went down the antenna wire and fried both of our TVs. On our roof, the antenna wire went under the cover to our attic fan, and the charge blew the cover off the roof. We were trying to figure out what happened, and my wife noticed that the rain seemed very loud. The attic access panel was in our bedroom closet. When we opened that, we were looking up at the open sky through the uncovered attic fan.
Always a shitty start to the workday when you are up on the roof at 6 a.m. in a driving rainstorm trying to tack down a tarp! But all things considered, we were lucky. Glad we were home to take care of it, as it was really raining in our attic.
A couple of years ago my sister had a pretty major house fire due to lightning. Her house was surrounded by large oak trees. Lightning struck one tree, arced across to the house, and started a fire - mostly inside the walls. Not a ton of fire damage, but considerable smoke and water.
Because it’s a fun fact, not because I’m trying to be pedantic: the lightning actually rose 10-15m away from you, not fell. A typical lightning strike is initiated by a flow of negative charge down from the cloud. As it approaches the ground (50-100 m), a positive streamer reaches up and meets the downward ladder, at which point a return stroke goes from ground to sky. This return stroke is what you see.
Friend was struck and killed on a boat we were on. I was 11. He was 12. In retrospect, I was always upset that no adult attempted CPR. I mean, as I got older, just from seeing it on TV, I think I would have tried.
I have been in t-storms as a teen and adult since then while boating (out to sea, nowhere to hide). For nearby hits, you get the near-simultaneous '‘ZWAP-BOOM’ and the bolt hits the water… and you can feel how the air has changed (charged?) and smell the burned ozone (always how I described it).
I was right next to a transformer during a hellacious rainstorm trying to drive home at night when lightning hit it and it exploded. I had stopped for some downed branches in the road and was about to go around them when BOOM. Giant sparks flew everywhere, the transformer burst into flames and the electric power line detached from the pole and snaked to the ground right next to my car. It was bizarre and over so fast I couldn’t believe it even happened.
I was out with a friend “ghost hunting” i.e., checking out the local supposedly haunted spots around town. We went to a Tocabaga mound that is situated, literally on the side of a residential street under some trees. It was raining lightly but you get used to that here. Anyway just as we were climbing up toward the mound the loudest, brightest . . .thing that I have ever experienced exploded, what felt like right, at my feet. There was such a combination of sensations and sudden fear, I can really see someone having a heart attack over something like that.
Gave me a whole new respect for lightening and I make sure to get the heck out of the way.
About 15 years ago, I was on an airplane that was hit by lightning while we were in flight. There was a flash, and a low booming sound, and everything in my body felt tingly for a few moments.
It’s happened to me several time, and each time it’s impressive! We had one particular pine tree just outside our our old house that was hit by lightning on at least 3 different occasions. It wasn’t the tallest tree in the yard and had a half dozen others of similar size around it, but this is the one lightning chose. I often wondered if there was an iron deposit directly under it. The other oddity is that the tree never died. It is a green today as it was when we moved in, or was the last time I drove by, but you can still see the lightning scars down the truck.
About 25 or 30 years ago or so, I was in my house with the garage door open, when lightning struck one of the trees just on the other side of the road we lived on. It’s the only time I have ever personally experienced no delay at all between the flash and the boom.
A good friend of mine got hit by lightning. The lightning bolt actually struck his garage, traveled up through the electrical wire from the garage to the house, went through his stove, and zapped him while he was reaching into the oven. He woke up a couple of seconds later on the other side of the room with everyone running towards him to check if he was ok.
So I’m guessing one of three things.
Lightning branched, and most of the bolt hit the jetway, but a side branch hit the plane.
The lightning, or at least part of it, jumped from the jetway to the plane. Lightning is so high in voltage that it already jumped through several miles of open air. Jumping a few dozen feet from one thing to another on the ground is no biggie for a lightning bolt.
When lightning hits, the voltage spreads out in all directions, so you end up with huge voltage gradients across the ground. For the oversimplified version, imagine a million volts at the point where the lightning hit, and zero volts 40 yards away. At 10 yards away (spread out in all directions), you’ve got 3/4ths of a million volts, and 20 yards away you’ve got half a million volts, at 30 yards away you’ve got 1/4th of a million volts. So if the plane’s wheels are five yards apart, they could end up with around 1/8th of a million volts difference between the wheels. That will cause current to go up through one landing gear and down through the other.
This is also the reason that if you are stuck out in the open and lighting is all around you, the best thing you can often do is crouch down in a ball to keep yourself as low as possible (and not have anything pointy up in the air to attract the electricity), and keep your feet together so that if lightning does strike nearby, you won’t get shocked and possibly killed by the voltage gradient across your feet.
When I was a kid, we were at the fairgrounds when a massive rainstorm opened up and turned the dirt to wet soupy mud. It started to hail fairly large hailstone, so we all headed for the nearest building, which was a seating stand. I was the last one heading that way when I started to feel a weird tingly sensation which freaked me the hell out and I hit the turbo button, and had just stepped my second foot out of the mud onto the concrete when I was totally disoriented by a massive KA-BOOM behind me. There was no one looking that way to say exactly how far away it was, it was too damn close regardless.
Lightning hit a tree that was in my yard that was about 50 feet from my house twice several years apart. One of the loudest noises I’ve ever heard. Two other trees in my yard of been struck by lightning at least once. Two of the trees that were close to structures have been cut down. Also, one time my family and I were driving home from my grandma’s. As were about to drive under a transformer, it got struck.
Once in Ontario we were driving along Highway 417 during a hot, dry summer. Lightning struck about 25 feet in front of our car and immediately set the brush on fire. Cars in both directions stopped and people ran over with fire extinguishers and put it out.
Another time in Kingston lightning struck a transformer about 100 feet in front of us and exploded in fire and sparks and an incredible boom - scared the crap out of us.
Also in Kingston sitting out on the deck watching a summer storm one night and lightning struck in the field across from our house. The bolt was straight down, thick and orange and lasted for at least a full second, maybe two. It was amazing.
I once had lightning strike a tree in my front yard. I didn’t see it happen but it sounded like an explosion.
And I did once witness a nearby lightning strike. Like the OP I was driving my car when lightning struck a tree on the side of the road. At the distance you don’t see the lightning as a bolt; it’s just a giant flash of light.
But all things considered, we were lucky. Glad we were home to take care of it, as it was really raining in our attic.