Getting your feet wet

[Bibbyman]

I thought the weather scientist say that lightning strikes up?  So it would have to jump across a couple of inches of wet rubber to travel several miles.

Wasn't much later I was visiting with a buddy here at the office and asked him about the scab on the back of his hand.  He said in a mater of fact tone; "That's where I got struck by lightning." and turned his hand over to show a worse wound on his palm.   He said he had been helping put up hay when a storm came in.  They jumped in the trucks and he on the tractor and headed out.  He had his hand on the throttle when he heard the lightning strike nearby and then felt it shoot through his hand.  

It was the first time he'd been lightning struck but not the last.  Only about a year later he had pasted through a metal gate on his farm and had went back to close it when apparently the fence was struck by lightening some place.  It knocked him down and he staggered back to the truck but after he finished closing the gate.  No apparent damage was done on that occasion.

[Tom]

The story of "being safe in a vehicle" goes like this.

The rubber tires don't mean doodley squat.  Automobiles are considered to be grounded.  What keeps you safe in a car is that you are surrounded by a cage of metal that has a good ground.  When lightning hits it, the lightning follows the metal around you and goes to ground.  That's why you are supposed to stay away from the sides of the car when in a storm.

Tractors are different.  When you are sitting on a tractor, there is no cage.  You are the highest point on a large ground.  That means that you are in one of the most dangerous positions that a person could be in.  The lightning would actually be attracted to you.

No, it's a fallacy to believe that safety comes from being insulated from ground.  The safety comes from the "ground/cage" directing the energy away from you.

We were taught at Ft. Benning, a lightning intensive area, to immediately move away from our steel pot and weapon and lay down flat on the side of a hill in the open or lay down in a ditch.  Do not congregate.  Separate from groups.  Don't get up until all threat of lightning is gone.  Stay away form trees, especially the lone ones.  Stay clear of fence lines, gates, power lines, poles, bodies of water or any metal.

I think the same rules would hold on a farm.  :P

[Bibbyman]

I guess wisdom comes with age - if you live long enough!

Happy birthday + 1 Tom!

[Noble_Ma]

If you go to the Museum of Science in Boston you can see the largest Van de Graaff generator in the world. It shows exactly what Tom's talking about.  They take someone out of the audience and put them in the cage and produce lightning.  It's quiet the show.  Come on up, I'll take you guys to the show.  http://www.mos.org/whats_happening/schedule/show49.html

[BRP]

Hey Bib your bud sounds like a lightning magnet.I'm glad to hear he was not hurt worse than his hand.I don't stay on a tractor during a storm either,matter of fact a sawmill out in the open is like a lightning rod too.