showering during thunderstorms and lightning

izzarina · Post by **izzarina** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 9:42 am

Charlene wrote:Don't sit or stand by an open window or door, or the lightning will hit you and kill you.

My mother told me this one too. I always wondered if lightning had some sort of a "search and destroy" signal in order to find and kill me

Charlene · Post by **Charlene** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:06 am

I forgot about the TV. Of course, we didn't have personal computers when I was a kid, or that would have been on the list also.

My blind friend has a lightning detector hooked up to his computer, and when it starts crackling he unplugs his computer and goes down to his chapel in the basement to wait it out. I'll unplug my computer if the storm seems like it's going to be really bad. We don't get that many thunderstorms around here anyway. My mother grew up in Connecticut, and when I was little we lived in Texas and Michigan, and the storms can be really bad there, so when I was a kid I was really scared of thunderstorms. Now I can watch them if they are off in the distance. I still go inside if they get close.

My father said he saw ball lightning in their house once when he was young.

A few years ago I saw something on TV where lightning had hit the ground and there was just the perfect mixture of sand and other minerals so the ground turned to glass and made a cast of the lightning bolt.

hyldemoer · Post by **hyldemoer** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 11:20 am

I've noticed here in urban Chicago that its not totally unheard of for lightning to hit power lines.
A friend once lost a refrgerator when that happened.

In addition to individual surge protectors on our electronics, we had a whole house surge protector installed on the building we live in.

That doesn't help us though if a bolt of lightning hits real close to the house.
We've had to replace electronics from that happening.

Using a telephone during a lightning storm?
Perhaps not one that needs a wired connection to the line. Ours are all wireless and we have a surge protector on the main unit.
(yes, I realize wireless doesn't work if the electricity goes out. If that happened I'd use my cell phone.)

Years ago I had a friend who was hit by lightning as he was leaving work (on a full moon). His boss was a witness. It knocked off his shoes and set him flying about 10 feet.
He was very lucky, no life threatening injuries. He wasn't even burned.

But for the longest time after that he had no preception of time.

4 hours might as well been one minute to him. 2 minutes could pass as 7 hours.
That probably is why I (and everyone else in his social circle) lost track of him. He just when off to his own little world.

burnsbyrne · Post by **burnsbyrne** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:30 pm

About 15 years ago our next-door neighbor's TV antenna was hit by lightning, blowing his TV across the room and frying his expensive shortwave radio which was also using the TV antenna. Undoubtedly the lightning hit his antenna instead of mine because I didn't have any fancy electronic devices in the house. It's funny how that darned lightning knows about things like that!
Mike

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:33 pm

burnsbyrne wrote:About 15 years ago our next-door neighbor's TV antenna was hit by lightning, blowing his TV across the room and frying his expensive shortwave radio which was also using the TV antenna. Undoubtedly the lightning hit his antenna instead of mine because I didn't have any fancy electronic devices in the house. It's funny how that darned lightning knows about things like that!
Mike

No boubt a prettier target, the wider web of wires ...

You can almost see the neon arrow and the words.. "Hit Me!" ... well... maybe not...

daveboling · Post by **daveboling** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 2:43 pm

Charlene wrote: A few years ago I saw something on TV where lightning had hit the ground and there was just the perfect mixture of sand and other minerals so the ground turned to glass and made a cast of the lightning bolt.

Fulgurites: http://www.minresco.com/fulgurites/fulgurites.htm

I have seen these carefully dug from the sand in Florida. They are actually more attractive that this picture shows.

dave boling

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:04 pm

My mother told me when she was about 18 in the late 50s, they had their TV fried by ball lightening that shot in through the porch, travelled 50 feet across the screened-in porch and kitchen, and slammed right into their first ever, fairly new TV.

They always paid for things in cash, and it took a few years to get a new TV...and my grandfather made sure to install a lightening rod on the house - not that it would have helped with ball lightening, but I'm sure it made him feel better.

Eric

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:19 pm

Charlene wrote:I forgot about the TV. Of course, we didn't have personal computers when I was a kid, or that would have been on the list also.

My blind friend has a lightning detector hooked up to his computer, and when it starts crackling he unplugs his computer and goes down to his chapel in the basement to wait it out. I'll unplug my computer if the storm seems like it's going to be really bad. We don't get that many thunderstorms around here anyway. My mother grew up in Connecticut, and when I was little we lived in Texas and Michigan, and the storms can be really bad there, so when I was a kid I was really scared of thunderstorms. Now I can watch them if they are off in the distance. I still go inside if they get close.

My father said he saw ball lightning in their house once when he was young.

A few years ago I saw something on TV where lightning had hit the ground and there was just the perfect mixture of sand and other minerals so the ground turned to glass and made a cast of the lightning bolt.

Wow...has the climate changed that radically in Spokane? When I was growing up there, we'd often have as much as a lightning storm a week during the summer...some of them fairly severe. I was actually trapped in a popcorn wagon at Riverfront Park during a particularly bad storm once...we could see lightning striking all around us (very scary!)

Redwolf

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:30 pm

I love thunderstorms. I don't shower during them. I unplug the PC if it's going to be a bad one.

I had a car struck by lightning once. It was pretty cool and nobody was hurt.

That's my story.

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:25 pm

My Dad and I use to sit on the porch, covered by a blanket and watch it storm when I was little. I still like a storm, unless it gets really close, then I go inside.

Lightening use to travel the hall in our basement where I grew up, so we knew not to be there during a storm. I've known of cattle with their hooves blown off from a lightening hit.

I remember reading this about a woman who had a bit of a problem with being on the computer during a storm- pretty scary-

http://www.rd.com/content/struck-by-lighting/

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:57 pm

That was just a bit north of here. This whole area is sometimes referred to as Thunder Alley, which is a bit melodramatic, but we do get some doozers through here in the heat and humidity of summer.

djm

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 9:38 pm

When I was a kid, we lived in a lovely old house that had two ful stories, a full attic and a Widow's Walk. My dad used to love to take a folding chair up on the roof top to sit and watch the often spectacular stroms roll through. One day, we were sitting in the kitchen, on the first floor, and he was up enjoying nature's fireworks when we heard a very loud clap of thunder, instantaneous with a brilliant flash, and suddenly, there he was, in the kitchen with us, not at all sure how he had navigated the three full flights of stairs to get there!

It wasn't long though, before he was back up watching them again.

djm · Post by **djm** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 5:43 am

Your Dad must have been a quick-change artisit.

djm