How close is close?

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

An afternoon thunderstorm was blowing the roof off here in Costa Rica on Thursday so I decided to start filming and got lucky with a good catch.

[pfluffenmeister]

Whoa.
That's close.

Met a guy who was struck.
He and his son were camping during a big thunderstorm in a tent.
He had big industrial style flashlight; said when he pressed the button to turn it on, the tent exploded.
Took him a couple of years to get his nervous system right.

[iceman]

That's close. I was standing on a screened porch watching a storm when a tree about that far away got hit, scared the piss out of me.

Most have probably seen this recent one but hey:

[Viva]

I used to go for runs / walks in the Sierra during summer lighting storms. Haven't done that yet here in Colorado...maybe today.

Sent from my SM-G960U using TGR Forums mobile app

[old goat]

Woman I know was struck on top of Half Dome. She was stunned but no apparent damage. Obviously not a direct hit.
We were on top of a peak in the Winds on a beautiful sunny day when our metal gear started buzzing. Turned around to see huge thunderheads. We got out of there in a hurry.

[swissiphic]

Interesting...I thought the universal 'they' always say "“Lightning never strikes the same place twice”.

Looks like it struck in the same place twice.

[SB]

you should get closer

[KQ]

Watching a storm one afternoon from my front room I saw a lightening bolt strike my irrigation power pole and BOOM the pump and all my hand lines stopped dead. I've also had a front row seat for strikes in wheat fields up on the bench to the north of me. Bolt comes down and like a match to a striking surface flames erupt immediately.


Pictures from the storm that rolled through W2 last night. I really need to put a lightening rod on my barn.

[Ted Striker]

Interesting...I thought the universal 'they' always say Lightning never strikes the same place twice

I'm sure Roy Sullivan would have something to say about that*





*if he were alive

[swissiphic]

Had my own too close of comfort experience about a month ago...just driving along, and...

[Kenny Satch]

I had it happen about 15 feet away from me. I was about 12 so I could've been slightly closer or father. The bolt was about 3 feet wide and the sound was so loud it knocked me back. Weird thing was the static charge I felt before it happened. Since then I find it incredible people can survive a lighting strike. I don't think I would've.

[KQ]

I had it happen about 15 feet away from me. I was about 12 so I could've been slightly closer or father. The bolt was about 3 feet wide and the sound was so loud it knocked me back. Weird thing was the static charge I felt before it happened. Since then I find it incredible people can survive a lighting strike. I don't think I would've.

Lightening comes up from the ground as well as down from the sky.

Does lightning strike from the sky down, or the ground up?
The answer is both. Cloud-to-ground lightning comes from the sky down, but the part you see comes from the ground up. A typical cloud-to-ground flash lowers a path of negative electricity (that we cannot see) towards the ground in a series of spurts. Objects on the ground generally have a positive charge. Since opposites attract, an upward streamer is sent out from the object about to be struck. When these two paths meet, a return stroke zips back up to the sky. It is the return stroke that produces the visible flash, but it all happens so fast - in about one-millionth of a second - so the human eye doesn't see the actual formation of the stroke.

Frequently Asked Questions About Lightning

[byates1]

no one gets as close as powder

[t-the-east]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2VWl1dK6pc4

Lightning Rod Reg

[MarcusBrody]

I was working on Bald Head Island off the NC coast one summer in college. I basically patrolled the beach all night tagging and protecting their nests. We were rushing to get the nest protection in place when we got caught in a thunderstorm and a bolt hit right down the beach. I still remember the crack and especially the feel of the pressure wave. We high tailed it inside.

[Kenny Satch]

Lightening comes up from the ground as well as down from the sky.

Does lightning strike from the sky down, or the ground up?
The answer is both. Cloud-to-ground lightning comes from the sky down, but the part you see comes from the ground up. A typical cloud-to-ground flash lowers a path of negative electricity (that we cannot see) towards the ground in a series of spurts. Objects on the ground generally have a positive charge. Since opposites attract, an upward streamer is sent out from the object about to be struck. When these two paths meet, a return stroke zips back up to the sky. It is the return stroke that produces the visible flash, but it all happens so fast - in about one-millionth of a second - so the human eye doesn't see the actual formation of the stroke.

Frequently Asked Questions About Lightning

@ 4:30 it explains this ^
So the flash I saw isn't the actual size of the bolt.
This documentary states it's only an inch in diameter.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

The tree that got blasted.. Locals say it looks fine, but it's toast. I was about 150 feet away while filming, wifey was about 100 feet away. Some people were closer. Nobody wanted to go outside for a long while after the storm passed. Muy dramatico..

[ill-advised strategy]

I had a real close strike on a ridgetop fire in the Frank Church in 97 or 98. Everyone was hunkered down in a downpour. There was noticeable static right before the strike. It was painfully loud. It was interesting to see so clearly how all those fires start, there were just chunks of burning wood all over, even in a pretty hard rain. It was gnarly, I’m thankful to have experienced it....later in my career I was real proactive about avoiding those exposed positions.

That same fire some genius grabbed a tree and leaned his dumb asshole over a small cliff near spike camp and pooped all over the cliff...and everybody got a stern lecture from a FS resource officer. I’m pretty sure they demobed us first (no surprise there) and later, back in Oregon, the poopster got the shit beat out of him by some older guys on the crew (guys trying to feed families, who did not need to get demobilized from a lucrative fire assignment for some idiot’s poo-graffiti).

Ah, the adventures of fire and forestry in the 90s.

[Norseman]

I've had the tassel​ on my beanie stand up and buzz, while ridgeline cruising in the Beartooths. Thought it was a persistent fly or bee buzzing around my head, till my brother said, "uh, you got a spark on your hat." Hunkered down in the big scree and not ten seconds later lightning struck ~100 yards away.

Friend of a friend got partially zapped on the Grand Teton. I think one or two in their group sustained serious injuries and was evacd.

[old goat]

I've had the tassel​ on my beanie stand up and buzz, while ridgeline cruising in the Beartooths. Thought it was a persistent fly or bee buzzing around my head, till my brother said, "uh, you got a spark on your hat." Hunkered down in the big scree and not ten seconds later lightning struck ~100 yards away.

Friend of a friend got partially zapped on the Grand Teton. I think one or two in their group sustained serious injuries and was evacd.

Getting zapped on the Grand is a favorite summer sport. We shared a plane row with a guy who used to do long line heli rescues in GTNP. I had recently read in Outside about one incident--8 dead I think--and asked if he had been involved in the thunderstorm rescue incident. His reply--"Which one?"

[From_the_NEK]

Probably about 20 years ago I was standing just outside the open garage door at my parents' house talking with my dad and uncle (who were standing inside). A thunderstorm was rolling in over the hill just to the west. I suddenly felt a tingle on the side of my head and my hair stood up. I immediately stepped inside the garage and a second later WHAM!. Lightening struck the treeline 25 yards away.
I'm pretty sure I had an ascending leader coming out of my head and thus was a potential track for the full stroke of lightening. However, I killed the leader by stepping inside and the the connection between the cloud and ground was completed via another nearby conductor. I feel I got pretty lucky that day.

[ncskier]

My house was struck August 2018. Lost nearly everything electronic from furnaces to appliances. Giant pain getting my house back in working order. Took almost 4 months when all was said and done.

[abraham]

I don't know if I've talked about it here but I was likely indirectly hit while in college. Went for a run near my parent's house and I remember pressure and a sort of buzzing light at the edge of my vision. The next thing I remember I was at least 1/4 mile away, out of the woods and walking on a paved path on the other side of the road from the trail. Some family friends who lived in the neighborhood confirmed they heard thunder that afternoon and I vaguely recall a friend checking one of the sites that track strikes. GF at the time thought I just got abducted by aliens and probed but my ass never hurt.

The tinnitus was real for a while, now several years later it isn't bad but it kept me from sleeping well for months. Sometimes it kicks in though, not looking forward to getting older since it's supposed to get worse with age

[DJSapp]

Once. We were setting up camp in Yosemite valley. Just got the tent set up as the rain hit. Mrs and my then 5 y.o. daughter got into the tent. I was pulling my 2 y.o. out of the truck, turned to close the door with him in my arms and then everything turned red. Sound wave hit and knocked me 2 steps back. Vision took about 30 seconds to come back. The lightning hit a tree about 100' away, right next to a parked trailer.

After the rain cleared, we went over and checked it out. 120' pine had a double helix burn scar, dropped a branch on that travel trailer roof, and clearly jumped to several rocks on the ground.

Too damn close.

Sent from my Pixel XL using TGR Forums mobile app

[old goat]

My son, roughly 13, and I were on our first extended backpacking trip. We started up Bishop Pass with not a cloud in the sky but by the time we neared the top we were in the middle of rain, grape size hail, thunder and lightening. I hated to have to hurry my son to get off the heights. The next year I did the same trip with my other son--and exactly the same thing happened. They both still love the outdoors although the eldest does go out of his way to avoid bad weather, at least in the summer. In the winter he prefers it.