Underestimating Lightning May Prove Deadly

"Lightning is increasingly becoming a force to be reckoned with."

You mean lightning is getting worse, more aggressive? That seems like kind of an odd thing to say.

By that sentence, I meant that the more we are finding out about lightning, the more deadlier it is sounding.

You bring up a good point though, is there more lightning then there was decades ago? I don't know the answer to that, but it may be an interesting find.

Sorry for the confusion.

Once I read a NASA electronic page about the statistics and intensity of lightning strokes over any place on the earth.

Please, any of you knows the address?

Thanks,

SERGIO A. CAMARGO B.

Serca_2@hotmail.com

Do people really underestimate lightning? I would think that most people would realize that it's dangerous, even if they don't run for cover at the sight of it - since the odds of getting hit are pretty slim.

Just last week I was walking up a hill en route to my apartment when a massive, sudden storm exploded literally above my head. Considering the amount of tall trees along the road and that the area was otherwise pretty open, I was nervous about the lightning flashing above me (& there was a lot of it!) but it didn't make me run for safety. Rather, I did what I think many people do - assume the "little bit of luck" approach.

Granted, I was almost home when lightning hit - but if you're outside for an extended period of time while a storm is raging, common sense is needed to stay safe.

Good timing for this article, I've been waiting for the wet season to end so summer can begin.

I believe that people underestimate how many people are hit and killed by lightning each year. I was surprised to hear that lightning killed more people than tornadoes and hurricanes. I would never have guessed that. Seeing as hurricanes and tornadoes leave so much destruction and death in its wake, it surprised me that lightning kills more people annually. I underestimated how many people are killed each year by lightning. I underestimated that the chances of getting hit were as high as 1 in 3000.

Most people do realize that it is dangerous, but not how dangerous it can be. I always thought thunder was a good way to tell the closeness of lightning. Now I know that thunder is a way of telling me that I could be hit by lightning.

Wow, that's amazing.

I wish I had learned all this earlier today. After work I was standing outside and reading when I saw flashes of lighting off in the distance. I even recall thinking to myself, "I should probably head inside...but I'll just wait until I feel some raindrops.
I guess that's not such a good idea.

Lightning normally precedes the rain...

Thanks Jaxy!

I've been in vehicles when they were struck by lightning several times, a few times were fairly dramatic. An a clear miss between my vehicle and a loaded gasoline tanker so close I could hear the sizzle just before my liquid crystal watch exploded.

In certain areas where the top soil is exceedingly thin like Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming cloud to ground lightning is extremely hazardous. I recall bolts around Williams, AZ where a purple electric atmosphere appeared surrounding the spots on the ground where the lightning bolts came from. These intense electric atmospheres appeared to be about 100 to 300 feet in diameter and emitted such things as balls of electricity bouncing across the ground and from boulder to boulder etc.. The show was quite intimidating even to a former extreme weather junkie

It is very quiet in comparison here at home I suppose because as the severe thunder storms passed about 20 miles west we could hear the thunder continuously grumble and rolling for at least 45 minutes straight; awesome eh?

Almost quaint here compared to life in Oklahoma long ago, we didn't need TV, we watched the funnel clouds instead

All fun aside lightning is very dangerous, it can miss you yet cause one to be thrown to the ground or hit with shrapnel from exploding/falling trees and equipment. Lightning voltage charges can be felt through fence lines, ground and surface water and arc from towers or buildings, I've seen electrical arc's within extreme electrical storms jump between towers 45 miles apart. This occurred when electrical orbs traveled from the ground up the radio tower to the top and then across the Snake River Canyon, as sheets of electricity were passing over the ground about 150' long by 50' wide and about 8' off the ground. This was occurring and the patio furniture was ringing about the time I decided to go inside a little too hairy for me

Hi,

the data on currents in big lightnings are much too low.

I was told by an expert that in the big positive (from positively charged cloud in the upper layers) lightnings currennts may reach 300,000 amps!

Next: only recently it is known that lightnings are accompanied by intense 1 to 10 MeV x-rays, that are generated by the high electrical field and the beginning conductivity and its electrons and ions. The process is still not fully understood.

RHABE

That is why I decided not to write about HOW lightning is created, no one quite knows the exact process. Some people speculate, but no one provides a concrete answer.

I am amazed at these figures; 1 in 3000 will be hit by lightning in their life, 20% will die. So we have 1 in 15000 people will die due to being hit by lightning. It seems a high number.

I am sure there are factors and variables which will increase or decrease your chances of being hit. If you go outside for every storm holding a pole, your chances increase; if you retreat inside every time a storm hits, your chances decrease. Or at least that is what I would think.

This may sound like a joke but I am actually really serious. People that don't take lightning seriously are golfers on the last two or three holes of the course. I've been through incredible storms to finish the last few holes of a course and until the horn sounds people will continue to swing. And who is the qualified person sounding that horn?

I am sorry, but I will have to disagree about the chances to be hit by a lightning.

The chances have been calculated using the number of lightnings that fall on the earth's surface, the total surface of the earth and the approximate average surface occupied by a human profile on the ground. This is highly untrue.

First because it assumes that everything including a human head, the ground the top of a building, the top of a tree and the top of a mountain are at the same level. The chances of standing under something taller than us with equal or higher conductivity must be accounted for. The chances of standing next to higher conductive objects will have a big impact on the number of human hits too. Finally for every account of an object with higher conductivity the conductivity ratio must be used to devide the chance of being hit by a ligthning. And these are just rough indications.

When lightning rods were first invented the pope threated to condemn the inventors as the use and control of lightnings was strictly directed by god himself. The case was resolved when lightning destroyed the higher part of a temple and priests saw value in restricting strikes to the often tall parts of temples.

Today lightning rods are very common even in places where lightning storms are uncommon. So here is some more protection.

In essence, if you decide to stay out in a thunderstorm it is more likely that you will catch a cold and die from pneumonia than getting a lighning hit.

Worst case scenario, if I was in a completely flat landscape which extends to more than 20 miles, I would just lie on the ground and enjoy the flahsy show.

Whether we understand lighning creation or not, I was of the opinion that we control plasma discharges so well that we can create devices such as x-ray emitters, lasers, neon lamps, spark gaps and even electric lighters.

As for the lightning strikes becoming deadlier than ever, well I could agree with that if I accept what is said about global warming being at its highest. More energy into the atmosphere, stronger winds, more frequent static dicharges. But I think we can still relax about the dangers of a lightning strike, get some vitamins and prepare for the swine flu!!

You are right about the chance of being hit by lightning probably being slightly inaccurate and being based loosely on what may be speculative data. As I have mentioned in a comment before, I am sure other factors change your chances of being hit. It was a number that I pulled from this website. No need to be sorry about having an opinion.

My main reason for writing this blog entry was to provide lesser known facts about lightning. I believe that while people are very much aware of the dangers of lightning, people might often disregard them (see golfers who think 'just one more hole' as they swing their metallic poles). My concern lies with those who partake in risky behaviors during a storm producing lightning, which may become a deadly mistake.

The original article on the National Geographic website (quotes italicised below) is self-contradictory so I don't know whether any of it can be trusted.

"The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in 700,000."

- consistent with figures below

" The odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000." - Implying an average lifespan of 233 years!

•" Lightning can kill people (3,696 deaths were recorded in the U.S. between 1959 and 2003) or cause cardiac arrest. Injuries range from severe burns and permanent brain damage to memory loss and personality change. - "

" About 10 percent of lightning-stroke victims are killed, and 70 percent suffer serious long-term effects. About 400 people survive lightning strokes in the U.S. each year. " - 400 are the 90% survivors so the 10% fatalities total 44 per annum. At least this correlates with the 3696 deaths mentioned above.

Based on these figures during an American's average life expectancy of 75 years, 3,300 will die from lightning and 33,000 will be struck. With a population of approx 300 million the lifetime risk of being killed by lightning is 1 in 90,000, and 1 in 9000 of being hit. Risk of being hit in a year = 1 in 700,000. Risk of being killed in a year = 1 in 7 million.

Yes, I find it difficult to believe the statistics quoted in the national geographic article.

But I did find it interesting that the frequency of lightnings differes highly from area to area, and that some areas, like congo and kenya (killimajaro area) are much more exciting.

Another interesting site that I found has live data of lightning strikes recorded over europe:

http://www.euclid.org/realtime.html

Yes it's a more frequent phenomenon than I thought, and I will take more care to stay down when in Africa, Indonesia or Florida, but at the moment I feel quite safe in eurasia.

G'day gals, guys & gurus,

I realize this thread has been dormant for some time but lightning is always an active and valid subject.

In post #14 GlowStartled stated:

"Worst case scenario, if I was in a completely flat landscape which extends to more than 20 miles, I would just lie on the ground and enjoy the flahsy show."

Actually lying on the ground is probably the most dangerous thing you can to in such a situation. The reason for this is that it's not the direct hit you really need to worry about but a nearby hit. With a nearby hit the current from the strike dissipates in all directions with the voltage dropping roughly with the square of the distance from the strike point. That means that the voltage you will be subjected to could actually be greatly increased if you were lying down than if you were standing up.

A classic example of this was demonstrated in New Zealand where they often graze cattle and sheep in the same paddock. After a particularly severe lightning storm nearly all the cattle in a field were found dead while only a few of the sheep were affected. The reason, the cattle were exposed to much greater voltage differentials due to their legs being much further apart than the sheep's feet.

So in GlowStartled scenario the best course of action would be to reduce your height by as much as possible by crouching while keeping your feet as close as possible to each other so that a nearby strike will not expose you to a fatal voltage differential.

Of course the best place to be would be inside a Faraday cage like a car where the metal body will shield you from the effects of the lightning. But that's only going to shield you from the electrical part, the flash itself and sound can and likely would result in at least temporary damage to your eyesight and hearing.

Regards, masu

Years ago I read some statistic that said we will know in a lifetime an average of 250 thousand people. I'm 56 now, and have only known one person who got hit by lightning.

Of course all arrogance is rewarded with pain, death, or rewards that don't make sense.

Hi Jaxy - Great article, and very relevant considering the recent spate of thunder-boomers hitting our Capital Region of NYS over the past couple months.

I'm 43, and have lived a life-time in the region between Albany and Saratoga. The trend I see is that the storms in my region are becoming much more localized and intense. This seems consistent with Tom Friedman's (NY Times writer/blogger) idea of global-weirding, and so likely the new-normal we all have to adapt to moving forward.

Saw a documentary - think on Nat-Geo cable TV channel - a few years ago, that supported the idea that some thunderstorms are initiated ("sparked"), along with other "seeding" factors, from cosmic sub-atomic particles that the earth is blanketed with on a continuous basis. Not much we can do about that factor, I think. Not sure if the solar flare cycles factored into this or not.

As a frequent commuter and someone who loves my portable "tech", my question is does the intensity of RF energy of a (2)-way mobile cell phone connection - or a mobile WiFi connection - attract lightning in any way?

Since I'm the cautious type, I turn off my cell in my car when I see the weather getting bad, and while at home, turn off /unplug my computer and TV equipment. I still have more electrical "bullet-proofing" to do in my home, and need to walk-the-walk of the advice I gave to folks in the industrial i/o industry who used to buy industrial telephone modems from me, circa 2000 & 2001. It's a tough situation when a $300+ "Smokey-the-modem" comes back home to factory and you're the guy who needs to keep the customer happy.

Best statistics I heard was that you were more likely to win the lottery than be hit by lightning. Figuring that 10% of those hit will die, I don't lose any sleep over it.

Bwire is normally an astute member of this site, but I must argue with his statement that lightning preceeds rain. Lightning is caused by the friction of raindrops creating an opposite polariety to the ground charge. The perception that lightning comes from the clouds is an optical delusion. The air is ionized from the ground up, the charge from the cloud then follows the ionized pathway to the ground. Lightning rods are designed to dissapate this charge, rather than the opposite.

That said, if you feel the ionization (hair on end, etc.), dive into the nearest depression, any ditch will do. People who are "killed by lightning" usually have some part of a tree sticking through them.