Weird Wonders

The closest I've been to a direct lightning strike was back in the summer of 1985. I was washing my car on my front yard under a heavy downpour when a bolt struck a tree at the other end of my compound, about 70 metres away. It was LOUD! A household help who was looking out the kitchen window said that the blast sent him staggering back.

But the biggest strike I personally know about occurred in September the previous year. I was at a friend's house when it struck at around 7 pm. The TV died immediately and it felt as if the strike was really really close. Half an hour later, the friend's sister came home from evening college about a km away and said that the lightning struck right next to their classroom.

That was at a time when the Power & Electricity Department often called me for help. The next day, I got reports from towns all over the state saying that they'd suffered severe damage from a huge lightning strike the previous evening. The times all coincided. That must have been one mother of a bolt.

What's counterintuitive is that you are slightly MORE likely to be struck a second time, having been struck once, already!

Probably because ones lifestyle is more aligned with getting struck to begin with

It's only counter intuitive if you believe that nonsense about it never striking the same place twice.

It took me awhile to find this and I don't trust my memory. It says that half of all deaths occur after the storm passes and to wait a half hour before going outside after the storm seems over.

The closest I've been to a strike was when I was a little guy, maybe 6 or 7. My parents were hauling irrigation pipe and let me drive the tractor pulling the trailer. I thought I was really hot stuff since they let me do that. They were either loading or unloading the pipe from the storage pile. I remember my mom yelling and both of them dropping the pipe. It was one of those proverbial bolts out of the blue. The sky was mostly clear with no threat of a storm. No one was hurt but my dad's hair stood up for awhile. I spent my working years fixing center pivot irrigation systems. My task on one call was to repair a single 14 gauge wire buried two feet or more around the field. The cause of the problem was lightning drilling a hole into the ground and through the wire.

Off subject but funny: I hope you remember the group ABBA.

are temporary a lot of times.

I used to install burglar alarms. One service call was on the top of a rid ge in a garage. The installer had run the perimeter loop cable through the holes with the power cables. A lighting strike had generated enough volta ge to puncture the insulation of both cables and melt the alarm wire in two ... no three... no four... I had to replace the entire wire as well as the panel.

Typical hookup wire is rated to 300 or 400 volts I believe, how much voltag e do you think it took to puncture the insulation on both cables?

As a youngster, I recall being "up late" during a thunderstorm. Back then, the "count 5 seconds per mile" trick seemed like magic! So, at each flash, I'd start counting, under my breath, waiting for the accompanying thunderclap.

Once, it seemed that the "clap" occurred BEFORE the flash! (not true, of course) The house shook.

Next morning, I noticed lots of tree bark on the ground at the foot of a Walnut tree located immediately adjacent to the house (~5 ft clearance). Looked up to see where it had been blown off the side of the tree by the lightning strike.

"Ah, that explains the coincident clap and flash!"