Watch out for lightning!

[A W Warn]

I'll add; don't roll up your water hose while watching a lightning storm approach.
Even if a strike is a mile away, it will really ring your bell when the current travels through the public water system. Ask me how I know!!!!

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by A W Warn

Ask me how I know!!!!

Well, if you insist… How do you know?

[A W Warn]

Originally Posted by Protagonist

Well, if you insist… How do you know?

Personal experience with lightning, three times.

The first time when I was only about 10 years old, no hoses were involved. I was inside the house. I just happened to be lying on a top bunk bed looking out while touching the metal window when lightning struck the chimney on a house next door. It knocked me off of the bed and bruised my arm where it was touching the window.
The next time, a few years later, I was drinking from a water hose in the back yard. The last time I was about 30 years old, I had been washing the vehicles and just started rolling up the hose, hurrying to finish when a storm was approaching. Both times, lightning stuck off in the distance and the current came through the hose. It felt similar to touching a spark plug wire, except stronger. The first time was just a tingle, like a slap in the face. That last time gave me achy joints, ringing in my ears, and spots in my vision like looking at the sun. Could have been worse I guess.

I'm still fascinated by storms! But, no one wants to stand near me.
I don't know why?

[dznf0g]

Remind me if I ever meet you, Alan, to step away from the human lightning rod.

[Jim J]

A few thoughts on lightning.

Electricity likes to take the path of least resistance (not a pun), as Protagonist says the current will go through everything but more of it will go where the resistance is the least.

It can travel through the metal parts of a trailer and arc over small gaps like from the stabilizer across an insulating block to ground, it will follow the path of least resistance - smallest gap to its destination = mother earth.

All the wires in your power cable look like they are at ground when the lightning is at a potential of greater than 25,000 volts and the power is at 110 volts.

Lightning likes to hit high pointy objects because height reduces the length the lightning has to arc and pointy objects make it easier to start an arc (put your TV antenna down)

A lightning strike near you can cause your electronics to fry ( I lost a power converter this way) if coupled into your power circuit by your power cord. You can use a surge protector to mitigate but not eliminate the risk of this happening. Count on getting at least a new surge protector if it does happen.

Do not put yourself or anything you value in a direct path of lightning strike (like standing outside in metal spiked golf shoes, holding an umbrella with a pointy metal tip that is higher than everything else around you as this could ruin a perfectly good umbrella).

[cwf]

Alan, you sound well grounded.

[mhilley]

Was hit by lightning once - really. Was in the basement standing on the damp floor. Came down the cinder block chimney and across the floor. My pants started shaking and then - boom. Wife wife says it effected me brain brain.

[Ted S.]

Swing a 1 iron over your head because even God can't hit a 1 iron.

[Gnorts]

Originally Posted by AWCHIEF

After living on sailboats for a number of years and getting direct strikes 3 times I can attest that no matter what precaucations you take if you get hit it will hurt grounded or not. Electronics will fry at the very least. Has anyone got real first person experience with a direct lighting strike in an Airstream? Not Internet myths or rumors.

I lived aboard a sailboat too, a 34 footer, for about ten years. I always believed the safest place to be, on a sailboat, during a lightning storm, is in a marina full of larger sailboats!

I was up a mast, in a bosuns chair, during a storm and lightning struck the ground a couple of times probably a half mile away. The mast buzzed and jolted me (mildly, but noticeable) at the moment of each strike, and I had my helper lower me pronto. The EMR (electromagnetic radiation) pulse during a lightning strike, even a distant one, is what I felt. I can see where a near miss would fry electronics, for sure. Scary stuff.

Google: Lightning strikes the earth 100 times a second, 8 million times a day.