3 ms·

Don't shower during a thunderstorm. Here's why

7 points by LinuxBender 4y ago

eimrine 4y ago
My granny always teaches me not to use electricity while a thundershtorm, not using water is a new level of paranoia.
h2odragon 4y ago
If you're really worried about lighting, erect a lightning rod. It'll find the best, highest path to ground (almost always), so provide one. Lightning can do odd things. I had a 500m, underground conduit holding 25 pairs of twisted pair copper that came up and terminated beside my desk. The other end was in another building and there was various equipment connected through this data cable. Grounded at both ends (and some folks at this point know the rest of the story). Lightning struck a hickory tree near the cable route, about halfway. Not enough to kill it but tore a nice strip of bark off all the way down. The ground surge from that induced current in the cable and my pipe coming out of the floor vomited out a small quantity of vaporized copper and the remnants of the teflon plenum insulation it had been covered in. Like a black powder cannon. Stippled the ceiling with an interesting pattern. A couple of the connected bits were not fried, more things were. The other end had "a weird noise" I was told. it was 50ft higher in elevation than my side so I assume that air pressure acted as a cap on that end and they just heard air intake past the wire from their side.
tus666 4y ago
> A thunderclap happens when lightning strikes, heating the air around the bolt to as high "as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun," the National Weather Service said. "Immediately after the flash, the air cools and contracts quickly. This rapid expansion and contraction (create) the sound wave that we hear as thunder." I never knew that. I always thought thunder was caused by currents of warm and cold air rushing against each other.
ksaj 4y ago
> do "NOT lie on the ground. Lightning causes electric currents along the top of the ground that can be deadly more than 100 feet away. I knew it electrifies the ground around the impact site (news of fields with several cows killed simultaneously is a good hint) but I didn't realize even 100 feet away is still unsafe. That's quite a long range when you consider football goal posts are between 20 and 30 feet apart.
FiatLuxDave 4y ago
I've heard this for years. Does anyone have any actual goddamn statistics of how many people die in the shower from lightning every year? So, if around 18 people per year die from lightning in the US every year, and most of those people were outdoors, exactly how risky is this activity, really? Is this just fear mongering, or is there an actual risk?

7 points by LinuxBender 4y ago

My granny always teaches me not to use electricity while a thundershtorm, not using water is a new level of paranoia.

If you're really worried about lighting, erect a lightning rod. It'll find the best, highest path to ground (almost always), so provide one. Lightning can do odd things. I had a 500m, underground conduit holding 25 pairs of twisted pair copper that came up and terminated beside my desk. The other end was in another building and there was various equipment connected through this data cable. Grounded at both ends (and some folks at this point know the rest of the story). Lightning struck a hickory tree near the cable route, about halfway. Not enough to kill it but tore a nice strip of bark off all the way down. The ground surge from that induced current in the cable and my pipe coming out of the floor vomited out a small quantity of vaporized copper and the remnants of the teflon plenum insulation it had been covered in. Like a black powder cannon. Stippled the ceiling with an interesting pattern. A couple of the connected bits were not fried, more things were. The other end had "a weird noise" I was told. it was 50ft higher in elevation than my side so I assume that air pressure acted as a cap on that end and they just heard air intake past the wire from their side.

tus666 4y ago

> A thunderclap happens when lightning strikes, heating the air around the bolt to as high "as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun," the National Weather Service said. "Immediately after the flash, the air cools and contracts quickly. This rapid expansion and contraction (create) the sound wave that we hear as thunder." I never knew that. I always thought thunder was caused by currents of warm and cold air rushing against each other.

ksaj 4y ago

> do "NOT lie on the ground. Lightning causes electric currents along the top of the ground that can be deadly more than 100 feet away. I knew it electrifies the ground around the impact site (news of fields with several cows killed simultaneously is a good hint) but I didn't realize even 100 feet away is still unsafe. That's quite a long range when you consider football goal posts are between 20 and 30 feet apart.

FiatLuxDave 4y ago

I've heard this for years. Does anyone have any actual goddamn statistics of how many people die in the shower from lightning every year? So, if around 18 people per year die from lightning in the US every year, and most of those people were outdoors, exactly how risky is this activity, really? Is this just fear mongering, or is there an actual risk?