Lightning

[Bandmill Bandit]

Lightning is something that occurs pretty much every where on this planet. Some enjoy mother natures fire works shows that transpire in much of North America and around the world during the summer months and others are scared spit less by it.

I for one love the fires works. But I must admit it can be a bit tense when it get as close as it did at about 6PM last night. I had gone out to park the mill head and cover the console.

Just as I reached the mill every hair on my body stood straight? I could feel the electricity in the air, and hear the sizzle/crackle of the strike before the visible flash occurred.

I watched the top half of a good sized spruce tree about 100 yards way turned to kindling in less time than it takes to blink. I walked over to the row of trees and found that the 3rd tree  was the one that took the direct hit and the 7th tree in the row (much larger) was split top to bottom. There was kindling spread for about 100 ft in all directions and some pieces were pretty big.

The first tree was about a 12 inch BHD. The second is about 16 inch or a bit bigger.

My son and I went over again a bit later and took pictures and collected the burned pieces.

I have afew other experiences as well but this is by far the closest one.

I have to figure out how to post pics from my iPad and will get the pics posted.

What are some of your experiences with this natural powerful beautiful yet potentially destructive reality of nature?

I know that some people have camera gear that takes wonder full pictures of lighting. Let see some of the pictures here. My kids have taken some good pics and I will post them as well.

[yukon cornelius]

that's a close call! my father in law was struck and lived. I also recall seeing an article about campers taking pics of each other with staticy hair sticking up and moments later they were struck! glad you are safe!

[thecfarm]

When my Father and me was cutting here we had fell a pine tree. Some of the branches was at the base of a tree. That tree got hit by lighting,than started a small fire,3-4 feet across at the base of the tree. Than the shower put it put.
I hade some tree that was blown apart and some that just split down the side.

[Andy White]

Bandmill Bandit,
Lightning is something to respect for sure! Three years ago, Me and a buddy of mine were fishing a tournament on Sam Rayburn when a small storm came up. We trolled to the back of a cove to avoid most of the high wind. While still fishing, I noticed after my cast, the line was suspended about 4 feet above the water! Thinking I had gotten over a limb, I raised the tip of my rod, and the thing started to vibrate and making a loud humming sound. My partner had seen that before, and shouted to drop the rod and get down! In a blink of an eye, lightning struck a tall pine about 50 feet from us, and was gone just as quick! We managed to escape without injury, but my 200.00 carbon fiber rod was not so lucky! A lesson well learned. Take nothing for granted, cause mother nature will get you! Be safe.   Andy

[chevytaHOE5674]

5 or 6 years ago the farm house here was hit by lightning. Blew the fuses out of the box and across the room, blew the phones off the walls and melted the plastic bases. Ended up having to rewire the house and put in new phone lines. Lucky the house didn't burn to the ground from all the hot/melted pieces of fuses/phones/plugs/light bulbs/etc flying around.

[SPIKER]

5 or 6 years back my sisters home in Akron was one of about half dozen hit like above.   One home burnt down out of them and her's had fire damage and required a total re-wire, phones and cable tvs...   Her main panel box was on fire but Brother-n-law had ABC extinguisher and put it out lucky he was home.

When I was teenager, I watched a pretty good sized Elm 50' from the house get a direct hit too.   It was raining & thundering pretty good, I walked out onto the back porch & felt my arm hair & on back of neck all stand up.   It was chilly air so I didn't think much of it at time then BOOM eye blinker for sure.   Went out and examined that tree next morning, it split off about a 1" square ribbons of bark in a spiral pattern from top to base all opened up like a flower peddle!   It was peeled out in 5 or 6 of those 1x1 bark ribbons (tree died btw.)   The bark fell out & away almost the height of the tree away was very interesting.

M

[Ljohnsaw]

I've always heard/read that if you feel your hair stand up, get down flat on the ground, QUICK!

A few have mentioned house fires - so what is the best way to ground a new house to dissipate a direct hit?  I actually have a Victorian-era lightening rod I was thinking of placing on my cabin since there is a lot of tree-strike evidence on my property.  Is it enough to tie to the rebar in the concrete of is a ground rod necessary?

[sandhills]

My Mom and Dads house on the farm got hit about 10 years ago, it blew every fuse in every outbuilding on the place (there's a lot) fried all the electric fencers we had and they basically ended up replacing most all of their electric appliances they had over the next year, it took that long for some of it to show up.

[sprucebunny]

Concrete isn't a very good conductor. Ground rod is way better.

I've looked into grounding things "properly" a couple times. I just can't get over the idea of sticking a well grounded conductor up in the air where it is likely to 'attract' lightning. Never mind that it would be well grounded and dissipate the strike ( perhaps) ... the idea of putting something up that is more likely to be hit seems crazy.

I might be convinced to run a wire up a tree that was 40' away from what I wanted to protect. That doesn't work too well on a boat.....

[gspren]

  There is a 250' tall cell phone tower about 1/4 mile from the house that I think/hope will lessen the chance of our house being hit, might just be wishful thinking.

[StimW]

7 cows were killed in Starke Fl. on 5-29-14 by lightening-

http://www.actionnewsjax.com/content/topstories/story/Lightning-strike-kills-7-cows-in-Starke/wbzJLZU1NEuKmNzg4_TyGQ.cspx

I was next to a large communications tower loading my boat on the trailer when it got struck 20 years ago.
I heard HISS-BANG!! and my hair stood up!  I screamed like a little girl!

[Ianab]

Cows are very vulnerable to electrocution as the distance between their legs is big enough to create a fatal voltage from the current flowing though the earth (away from the strike) They get killed by fallen power lines for the same reason, they don't need to touch them, just the current flowing through the earth near the short can take them out. Humans with 2 legs close together aren't so vulnerable.

Safest place to be in a lighting strike is inside your car. The metal body acts as a Faraday shield and carries the current around you, then to the ground. Roof may be hit, and then it arcs from the chassis to the ground. The car's electronic might be damaged, but chances are you will be safe, apart from needing clean shorts   :D

[WDH]

The tall pines at the Augusta National Golf Course (Masters) have lightning rods and ground wires. 

[Kcwoodbutcher]

I may be wrong about this but I don't think lightning rods are designed to  attract lightning and dissipate it to earth, but rather they are supposed to  dissipate the attractive charge the building generates. This is why they generally terminate in a point rather than just a blunt end. We lost a horse a few years ago to lightning. The whole herd was fine except this one . It was the only one that had shoes.

[Dave Shepard]

Several years ago we found a cow under a tree in the pasture, toes up, as my sister put it. Had no idea why. A couple of years later we found five dead cows under the same tree after a lightning storm. I guess that's a good tree to stay away from.

[Ianab]

Not really. They are designed to be hit. The house / tree / TV tower etc are all effectively at earth potential all the time. It's the cloud a 1/2 mile overhead  that's building up a charge relative to the ground. Once that charge gets great enough to break down that 1/2 mile air gap, BANG. That "hair standing up" thing is a sign of that static charge building up, so I you feel that, get down, (or in a car). Don't go under a tree as Dave's cows would tell you (if they weren't dead)

The point does encourage this by concentrating any electrical field at that point, making it more likely the breakdown and arcing will occur there. But the idea is that the spike is hit, the current can flow down the heavy cable, and dissipate through a good ground peg(s) This is a MUCH better outcome than it hitting your roof/chimney/TV antenna and then taking a random path to ground via various wiring, water pipes, people etc, inside the house.

[mesquite buckeye]

Lots of saguaros get killed or damaged by lightning. We lost one at the saguaro hill last summer. Most of the time they just get chunks blown off (cold strike) or roasted, like ours on the hill (hot strike). Worst case they disappear in a fine green mist.

I have seen a pine tree explode like this in the mountains near here.

The walnut I cut from my woods for Darlene's bathroom remodel was struck by lightning. There are burns in the wood from it.

 
You can see black lining both sides of the strip of heartwood. The tree had a strip of bark blown off from the strike. As we got further from the rotted wood of the strike area, it graded into a burn line that separated after cutting to a burn line or lines that was solid and the tree continued to grow over. This piece is from that area. We could smell burnt walnut while we cut the tree. There are other patterns of dendrites of burn and burn following knots and bug holes. Very interesting.

[warren46]

About two years ago I woke up standing next to my bed at the sound of an explosion in our back yard.  Since I don't have any explosives on my property I soon decided that it must have been lightning striking some where near our house.  The next morning I found a six foot long sliver lying in my driveway from an oak tree that stood next to my shop.

That is only the first chapter.  The next night there was another thunderstorm.  Our dog woke us up and we (my wife and I) thought it must be that he was just nervous about the thunder.  I happened to look out the window and noticed that I had left the lights on in the shop. Then it occurred to me that the light was orange and not florescent blue.  The shop was on fire from a second lightning strike to the same tree.  All four walls and the ceiling were ablaze when I reached the shop.  About $10,000 in damage.

Shop is rebuilt and the tree is now a bed and a few other things in our house as well as about 500 bd ft stacked out back.

Warren

[thecfarm]

warren,that is too bad. Only damaged the building?
I have not had much lighting damage lately. Seem like for a few years I was losing some tress.

[jargo432]

While I was in the Army at Colorado Springs I was hit through a phone line.  It tossed me across the room and there was a burn mark on the phone.  I learned quickly not to talk on the phone during a storm. 

[Bill Gaiche]

Lightning can be something to watch for sure, but is very dangerous. I can remember our neighbor lost 3 Jersey cows under a large post oak tree. Another time other neighbors lost 7 cows that were crowded up in a corner of a barbed wire fence from a lightning strike. bg

[whitepine2]

Lightning can be something to watch for sure, but is very dangerous. I can remember our neighbor lost 3 Jersey cows under a large post oak tree. Another time other neighbors lost 7 cows that were crowded up in a corner of a barbed wire fence from a lightning strike. bg

About 35-40 years ago when I had cow's three got hit that were under an ash tree one died and we had to get vet. for death cert.so insurance would pay. The other two survived but had to get sell one as was never right all three were Jersey that we had just bought at a sale and were all standing under the tree.I don't know if this makes any difference but about 20 feet away is where three springs are located which run under this large Ash this might have caused the strike don't know??? Tree still stands but was never the same,leaves still appear so I don't cut it down guess it will out-live me,only few Ash trees around this big about 30" and 50-60' tall just hate to cut er down.

[Alcranb]

Whitepine2 somewhat on those lines I own a piece of woods that in colonial times was mined for the bog iron ore. You can't go more than a couple of hundred yards without coming across a tree or cluster of trees that have been struck by lightning. Most are toast but a few have survived.
I made mention to the old gent I bought the property from about all the lightning strikes and he said it was because of all the iron in the ground. Sounds good to me  ;)