Thread: Lightning!
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Old 04-21-2015, 10:25 AM   #20
dannc
Guru
 
City: NC
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 1,341
I mentioned this link to Kasten on the other thread. It has the best write up about lightning I have found and links to more information.

Lightning Attenuation Onboard

You can do what is suggested in the link and other pages he has linked but the bottom line is that the one certainty with lightning is that there is no certainty with lightning.

Our house is surrounded by forest and we are on a rise that is the highest ground for a couple of miles. Lightning kills plenty of our trees. There is NO certainty to which trees get hit at least none we can tell. It certainly is NOT all about height.

The dead trees need to be cleaned up so we burn them to heat the house. 3-4 years ago I needed to split some firewood. It was in April. However, there was a front on the way and looking at radar the front was 30-40 miles away and moving slowing. I had enough time to split some wood but not do everything I wanted not did I want to start and then have to stop and run around getting things covered up when it started raining.

Instead, I called my parents. An hour or so into the phone call, I looked out to the west to see if I could seen any clouds. No clouds at all. Perfectly blue sky that suddenly went WHITE followed by a huge BOOM! The phone call ended, the wife and kids screamed, and I needed some new Fruit of the Looms.

A lightning bolt had hit a tree about 125 feet from the house. Not a cloud in the sky.

The tree that was hit was NOT the tallest tree around but it was the tree I would have been under if I had been splitting wood. I was using that tree to provide shade and the log splitter was setup under the tree. I don't know if I would be here if I had gone out to split wood that day.

That front dropped tornadoes over eastern NC and killed a couple of people including a coworkers family member.

The tree had leafed out prior to being hit and about three months later the green leaves just DIED over night. Very odd. The lightning had blown tree bark 100 feet from the tree so we were pretty sure the tree would died but it took three months and then the leaves just died. Still need to cut down that oak and make firewood....

No problems with any electronics in the house. Knock on wood.

Years back we were on the Outer Banks and I went out Kayaking in the sound. A small hurricane had gone through a month or so previous and roofers were on the house next to the place we were renting repairing the shingles. While I was out paddling, a thunderstorm popped up and was heading right towards me and the town. I paddled like heck to get home to beat that storm and barely made it. The storm was dropping lightning bolts as it moved up the island and we could see the hits as the storm got closer and closer....

The roofers could see the bolts as well but those fools stayed up on the roof with hammers in hand pounding down nails. Unreal.

The storm arrived over the rental houses and Thor was throwing down all around the house. We did NOT feel secure in that house on stilts with thin walls that is for sure. Lightning hit a good half dozen times right around the house including several power poles. The whole time the roofers stayed on the roof. Just plain stupid but they did survive.

A couple of weeks ago we had yet another bad lightning storm while I was driving home. I got to town and out of the corner of my eye I saw part of the lightning bolt and turned my head in time to see the main bolt hit the ground. I guess I saw the leader flash a fraction of a second before the main strike which looked to be three feet in diameter before everything whited out. The strike either hit a commercial building or the trees behind it. Down the street a fire truck was at a house that I assume got hit a few minute prior.

Another storm went through last night and there was a very close hit. I guess by the end of the summer we will see if there is another dead tree...

My dad's sail boat was hit by lightning and he was lucky. Back then there was not much electrical stuff on a boat and the bolt only took out the antennae, VHF, and maybe the depth sounder. He was lucky that the bolt did not hole the boat and sink it. The boat was docked on a canal in a subdivision. The people who owned the house where the boat was docked did not have any damage. Why did his boat get hit and not another boat, a nearby house, tree or power pole? Only the Lightning knows.

Lightning scares me. And with good reason. Best I can tell is that you do the things listed on Kasten's website, carry spares in a Faraday cage, have good insurance and hope for the best.

Later,
Dan
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