How to Avoid Lightning in the Wilderness

mete said:
Yes there is both positive and negative lightning !
Carry a Faraday cage with you !
Mother nature does what she wants to do !! However there are some generalities. Stay away from high places and conducting things like trees. Note that in Esav's photo ,in the lower left part of the photo, there is a pole of some kind and a small lightning branch hitting it ! The many photos of the Empire State building show a similar thing .While strong bolts hit the highest things like the tower on the Empire State ,weaker bolts go past and strike lower buildings.
And then there's ball lightning , a fascinating thing indeed.I watched a film of a laboratory produced ball lightning that gradually oozed through a ceramic tile ! A fellow HAM described lightning hitting his tree and turning into ball lightning, This went three blocks along chain link fences then punched a hole through a house and disintegrated.
Click to expand...

Why do "lightning arrestors" have points? Basically, because the points concentrate the local electric field and stimulate a strike ... thin poles can produce a similar effect.

For those with deep technical training, the statement above is actually naive and rather inaccurate. However, I don't want to put you all through a brief course in vector calculus and Maxwell's Equations so I can give you the correct explanation. I think you'll forgive me for this.:)

Ball lightning is fun.:D We don't really understand it and can't model it properly with Maxwell's Equations, although someone is always thinking about it.

A dear friend and colleague of mine spent quite a time working on the production of independent charged objects somewhat like ball lightning. Actually produced some amazing oddities. Sadly, it all proved too uncontrollable and dangerous. I don't think he's looking into this any more.:(
 
cotton on wool or polyester = static charge. Socks in shoes, your underwear on your pants, your shirt on your jacket and your jacket on your pack, the hat on your hair... you have alot of room for different cloth fibers rubbing on each other, all which generate static electricity. If you really felt necessary to do so, you could make sure that everything you wear is made of the same material, but personally I think it's a bit overboard.
 
Chances of actually dying from lightning strike are 1 in 6.

So, if you've been hit 5 times already, I understand the concern. :eek:
 
Fubarski said:
Chances of actually dying from lightning strike are 1 in 6.

So, if you've been hit 5 times already, I understand the concern. :eek:
Click to expand...

While this post demonstrates a serious misconception of the fundamental concept behind statistics, it still made me laugh.:D:thumbup:
 
You better be careful what you ask him, or he will explain it ...
completely ... and I'll make you read the explanation.

There will be a quiz. :D
 
Lee Trevino's approach to staying safe in a thunderstorm:

"In case of a thunderstorm, stand in the middle of the fairway and hold up a one iron. Not even God can hit a one iron."
 
DC current flows (or jumps) from Negative to Positive. The clouds or atmospheric conditions producing lightning in the sky usually begin as a strong Negative charge. Positive electrons (a Positive charge) gathers in the earth beneath the Negative charge in the sky and when the imbalance becomes high enough---bang! Electrons leap from sky to earth in the form of a lightning bolt. However, this now leaves that area of the sky 'Negative Poor' so it has now become Positive while the area below where the bolt just hit has become Negative. The result can be, often is, a return stroke from earth to sky. Nature abhors anything out of balance so there can be a constant barrage of lightning stokes both up and down.

I used to supervise crews on remote test ranges and lightning was a constant threat and worry. Couple of comments in that regard: 1. Don't depend on a metal vehicle protecting you. Normally it would but if you've been driving through high, wet weeds or brush and you're parked in the same stuff, you can be vulnerable because the vehicle may be grounded by the vegetation and not isolated by its rubber tires. Theoretically, a bolt hitting the vehicle under those conditions would send the charge around the occupants via the metal body of the vehicle. However, I did have some burn injuries when three people in one of my crews took refuge in a vehicle sitting in two foot high grass/weeds. 2. Best thing, IMO, is to get to a low spot and, if possible, into a dense grove of trees, then lay down or huddle on the ground as far as you can get from any tree in the grove. Isolated shacks and small buildings out in the open can be a death trap. I recall two teen-aged boys at Ft. Leavenworth who were out rabbit hunting. They were caught in a violent storm and took refuge in an old range shack. The shack was about 10 by 10 feet with a tarpaper roof and had been used at one time to store targets. It had also been wired and had an old electric bulb fixture dangling from the ceiling. Outside, the wire from the fixture looped up fifty feet or so to an electrical pole about 40 feet high. The wire had been cut off at that point and other poles were long gone. Anyway, the boys got out of the rain and hail in the shack and were standing close together and just a couple of feet from that overhead light socket. Wham! A bolt hit the wire outside and both boys were killed, no doubt instantly. I saw the bodies on scene and it wasn't pretty.

Anyway, if nothing else, get to an arroyo, creek, etc., down into it as far as possible and lay down flat. Anything projecting up from the surrounding terrain or vegetation can be struck--make sure you're not that high point.
 
abo4ster said:
So the old timers say basswood trees never get struck by lighting, and I can't say that I have ever seen one that had been hit.

Black locust trees are apparently a magnet for lightning as from a percentage standpoint they get hit a lot, but oaks typically get hit the most, at least in the east.
Click to expand...

We have a bunch of black & honey locust, walnut, oak, cottonwood, hackberry, and willow trees in a grove on the campus near my house, but the catalpa tree in the middle is the only one that gets struck, and it has been struck repeatedly.

My native plants prof. told me that catalpa trees are often struck by lightning, presumably because they often have tall, straight trunks and a relatively high concentration of salts in their vascular tissue that make them good conductors. It seems strange that cottonwoods would have a different response, since they are also usually very tall & straight. It must have something to do with the internal chemistry of the tree after all.

I'm not sure if this is true in other areas, but I've seen the evidence here in Kansas.
 
Don't keep fishing with a graphite fly rod :D

Seriously though, squat down low & keep your feet together.




Kind regards
Mick
 
Walkabout said:
Lee Trevino's approach to staying safe in a thunderstorm:

"In case of a thunderstorm, stand in the middle of the fairway and hold up a one iron. Not even God can hit a one iron."
Click to expand...

[youtube]8A3M-d_eIqo[/youtube]







:D
 
OldPhysics said:
Mostly sound ... though shedding metal objects would lead to tossing away your knives, and we can't have that.:) I would not, however, suggest you decide to hold that nice chopper blade over your head.:D

Generally speaking, inside a car you're in a Faraday Cage and protected from lower frequencies of E-M radiation. Sadly, lightning can come right through a glass window ... though that doesn't seem to have anything to do with touching metal objects inside the car.

Why do you need to 'squat low?' Even if you aren't struck by lightning, you will be experiencing a strong oscillating electric field anywhere within a pretty goodly distance from a lightning bolt. You need to reduce the potential difference your body experiences due to this field ... and a realistic way to do that is to lay flat or at least 'squat low.' Of course, squatting won't help if you're inhaling water at the same time.:)

All of these suggestions involve ways to convince the lightning bolt that you are in no way involved with its shortest distance to ground.:D

In my long-distant youth, I was involved with some lightning-related research in the desert Southwest. I recall being near a ridge as a storm approached, feeling an odd prickling sensation -- it was the hairs on my body standing up as 'static electricity' began to build across my body. Basically, a strong approaching electric field was starting to polarize me. This not a good thing. I threw myself flat and waited out a sudden, rather nasty storm -- complete with a few unpleasant lightning bolts.:o

Clearly, I survived. And you can, too.:thumbup:
Click to expand...

Supposedly, squatting with your hands on your knees is to encourage the charge to pass through your arms, into your legs and then to ground. This avoids cooking your tender innards.
 
This was weird. Two weeks ago the wife and I were at the Drive-in. There was a distant thunderstorm approaching.Spectacular cloud to cloud lightning. Then, the area between the front row and the screen lit up in a temporarily blinding flash of light . But, it did not thunder.
 
Pritch said:
Don't be the highest point in the vicinity. Don't seek refuge under a high point. Shed any metal objects. If on or in the water, get off/out.
Click to expand...

I was 100 miles offshore south of Cape Hatteras in the middle of the night when a big squall line came through with lots of lighting. Very scary. I guess because the mast and everything else metal mounted to my sailboat was grounded to the keel, it kept it from getting struck. (or just lucky)
 
very good information in many of the posts in this thread. thank you for the fine valuable counsel. it`ll be put to practical use since the rainy season is well under way at this time and i also happen to live in the lightning capital of the world to boot.:eek:

colt
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top