Fun Facts

During thunderstorms, there is a great risk of being stricken by lightning if you are bathing in the rain nakedly because water and your own body which is made up of high percentage of water, are electrical conductors. You may not be aware of the danger that lightning has when you are wet and hanging around outdoor during a thunderstorm. As compared to tornadoes and hurricanes, lightning has been responsible for many deaths of people in the U.S.

Different from most people believe, lightning does not only come from the skies; it can also originate from the ground on the same direction of the clouds during a thunderstorm. When it comes from the clouds, it is not yet clear how the charge separates within the cloud that result to an electric field differential which forms the conductivity channels in the atmosphere.

Lightning is an amazing phenomenon that strikes anything that conducts a flow of electricity creating very strange effects during a thunderstorm. It usually strikes the objects located above the ground, but it can also affect adjacent objects, such as houses, power lines, people or animals. Lightning can penetrate your home through the electrical circuit.

Lightning occurs when a thunderstorm creates wide areas of positive and negative electrical charges causing friction between the evaporating water droplets and water droplets being dropped from the clouds. Air is a good insulator, but when the charged areas have built up tremendously, a stream of electrons escape from one area which is positively charged to an area which is negatively charged.

The flow of energy from the conductive path where the negative electrons flow to the area which is positively charged is so strong that it causes the air to explode in a wave of pressures. The energy produces light in this friction called lightning stroke, and can be in the form of a ground stroke or originating from one thunderstorm cloud area to another. The molecules present in the air during the lightning stroke are blown separately by the large amount of energy, and mix into other molecules and pure atoms.

During a thunderstorm, a cloud has been charged so much that it produces a build-up of charge on the ground under the same direction. When the ground area has become large and intense enough, it becomes a potential target for a lightning strike. High objects such as towers, trees and chimneys are primary targets of lightning since they are tall, and they can provide closer distance of path for the strike.

Objects which are not grounded properly can also build up charges more easily and can be prime targets of lightning strikes. But if you are inside the home having a shower, your risk of being struck by lightning is low. The risk is higher for a person talking on the phone during a thunderstorm, holding an electrical appliance, or anything that is connected to a power grid.

This is because the lightning that strikes those electrical wires may enter your home that can cause severe damage and injury to persons and properties. A case like this may be rare, however, but it is better not to use those appliances when there is a thunderstorm.

Fun Stuff lightning, thunderstorm

How many times have you heard somebody tell you, “Well, you have a better chance of getting struck by lightening than that happening!”? Usually after someone says that you forget about doing whatever you were going to do because you figure your chances of getting hit by lightening are pretty low. But how often do you actually start to wonder after someone tells you that, “What are my chances of getting hit by lightening?” If my chances are real low then whatever it was I wanted to happen probably will not happen. However, if my chances of getting struck by lightening are pretty high, well then so are my chances of getting what I want to happen.

The actual current statistic for your chance of getting hit by lightening is one out of two hundred and eighty thousand. That seems like a big number but out of all the numbers it is really low.  And just in case you were curious your house has a one out of two hundred chance of getting hit by lightening. And that is a really low number, so you might want to be nicer to your house because his chance of getting hit by lightening is one thousand four hundred times higher. And your house doesn’t have any safe place to hide from a lightening strike, as a matter of fact, your house protects you during a thunder and lightening storm.

So, if you think about it one out of two hundred and eighty thousand is pretty high chances, if you compare it to your chances of winning the lottery which is probably about one out of a million. So next time someone tells you that you have a better chance of getting hit by lightening stop and think, maybe it’s worth it to do what you want. If the risk out weighs the positive outcome then you probably should forget that idea. However, if the possible positive outcome greatly out weighs the one out of two hundred and eight thousand risk that everyone seems to think you have for everything, go ahead and do your daring trick or take that on that daunting tasks. Because NOW you know what your chances are of having a positive outcome if everybody else has been right when they told you that you had a better chance of being struck by lightening.

Fun Stuff lightning, lightning facts, struck lightning