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Lightning Strikes

I haven't heard the one about covering mirrors before. When I was little my grandmother used to hate lightening storms. She would turn the electric off at the mains. Seemed to think that the electrical sockets would act as a conduit for the lightening. I don't know if this is true . Surely not . .?
 
I haven't heard the one about covering mirrors before. When I was little my grandmother used to hate lightening storms. She would turn the electric off at the mains. Seemed to think that the electrical sockets would act as a conduit for the lightening. I don't know if this is true . Surely not . .?
Im not sure it reduces the risk of lightning strikes, but unplugging electrical equipment from the socket will prevent the items exploding if lightning travels through the mains supply.
 
My nextdoor neighbours when i was growing up were 2 girls approx the same age as my bro and i, their mom was terrified of lightning and would make them hide under the table with her during a storm. Recently we all met up again, them having moved away whilst we were still at school, and the youngest explained that she wished she could have been stood outside watching the lightning with us rather than hiding.
 
I haven't heard the one about covering mirrors before. When I was little my grandmother used to hate lightening storms. She would turn the electric off at the mains. Seemed to think that the electrical sockets would act as a conduit for the lightening. I don't know if this is true . Surely not . .?

Probably not the mains - can't see how that would happen, but lightning can blow up your computer - happened to a friend years ago in a storm. Presumably it hit the phone line outside. Could also hit your tv aerial if you have one on your roof. Whether this would knacker your tv I don't know - probably wouldn't do it much good.
 
Probably not the mains - can't see how that would happen, but lightning can blow up your computer - happened to a friend years ago in a storm. Presumably it hit the phone line outside. Could also hit your tv aerial if you have one on your roof. Whether this would knacker your tv I don't know - probably wouldn't do it much good.

My parents has a similar incident (probably almost 40 years ago now) with an ancient telephone answering machine that literally exploded like a bomb went off in our kitchen during a fierce electical storm. At the time it was assumed it hit the phone line somewhere outside and travelled to the end of the line, resulting in the big 'boom'!
 
Here's an odd - and dangerous - side effect of a lightning strike. Lightning hit a highway and caused the pavement to explode, sending a chunk of pavement through a pickup truck's cab, smashing both the windshield and rear window.
Chunk of highway goes flying through truck's windshield after lightning strikes road

A lightning strike sent a chunk of highway through the windshield of a truck in Florida on Monday and authorities say the truck's occupants are lucky that their injuries weren't more severe.

When fire rescue crews in Walton County, 40 miles north of Destin, responded to the scene ... they found a Ford truck with both its windshield and rear window shattered.

Radar picked up on a lightning strike in the area, according to CNN meteorologist Haley Brink.

Two occupants of the vehicle were hurt and were transported to a local hospital. Fortunately, their injuries weren't major or life-threatening, Lindsey Darby, public information officer for Walton County Fire Rescue, told CNN. ...

"The energy from a lightning strike has to go somewhere," Brink said. "And when lightning strikes an object, such as pavement, it can cause that object to "explode" due to the lightning's pressure blast wave which is caused by the sudden superheating of the air surrounding the lightning strike."

Darby said she spoke with their Battalion Chief, Christopher Brown ...

"He said, 'I've been in the fire service for 19 years, and I have never seen anything like this'" ...

Darby has been in contact with the driver of the truck but said he doesn't remember much about the accident "because it all happened so quickly."
SOURCE (With Photos): https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/10/us/lightning-strikes-highway-truck-trnd/index.html
 
It was about 7 miles from here, we were on the edge of the storm a lot of
rain and flashes and bangs, the sky was black over towards Blackpool so it
must have been quite intense there.
 
Poor lad. He seems to have been a sweet little boy.

Have to say I'm wondering why kids were being taken outdoors to play football with lightning around.

When Techy played golf, a klaxon would sound at the first whiff of ozone and everyone would get off the course PDQ. Courses were closed if thee was any risk of lightning. It's not safe to be out in the open with thunder around.
 
We are only a few miles away and the storm started very fast. we were out in the garden
then suddenly without warning bang flash.
 
We are only a few miles away and the storm started very fast. we were out in the garden
then suddenly without warning bang flash.
That quick, eh? Like they couldn't see it coming.

Some years ago there was a thunderstorm in my home area, nothing special, and then there was a huge BANG.
A builder had been struck and killed while working on scaffolding several miles away. That seemed totally foreseeable.
 
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Many years ago I was minding my own business when through the gates came a tractor towing
a hydraulic mower to travel on the roads with these you are supposed to raise the cutters put
safety pins in then release the pressure on the hydraulics, this hadn't been done so not only
had he come through the gates like a loony but every seal had blown, What the f are you doing
says I, but when I got a look at him he was obviously terrified. He had been mowing when out
of no were a shimmering blue ball had come out of the air landed and started bouncing after
the tractor, he could not shake it off panic set in he pulled up the mowers shuck it in high gear
and drove flat out to base, I told him it was ball lightening and he was lucky to see it and would
likely never see it again but nothing would get him to go back out that day. I was more pissed
at not being able to see it myself than having to replace every seal.
 
Back in the 70s when I was at school, a huge dark cloud moved over the school playground. We felt our hair standing on end and one of the teachers chased us indoors. We went up to our classroom and watched the cloud head towards the town centre ( a bit like the big spaceship in Independence Day :) ) Suddenly there was a bright flash and we saw a lightning bolt streak down to the ground. Later we found out that it had hit a church spire.
Many years later I was telling a colleague at work and he said "My dad was standing at a bus stop outside that church!"
He had been standing at the bus stop with the church behind him when there was a massive boom, everything lit up with a bright light and he could see his shadow cast across the street. Then bits of debris falling around him.
When he realised it wasn't a nuclear bomb going off, he dusted himself down and headed straight for the nearest pub. He arrived home very late and very drunk that night.
 
Earlier in this thread, some years ago, I mentioned that Techy (then known as The Boyfriend) was out playing gold in thunder.

As I recall he collected a rocket on his return. :chuckle:

He had no excuse as he knew golfers who'd been around lightning strikes.

One had been standing under a tree thinking 'Hmmm, it's a bit thundery, did I hear a klaxon? Maybe just one more 'ole...' when his golf bag exploded. :oops:
 
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Blackpool tower gets hit quite often years ago it was hit and the bolt
traveled down the tower ripped up the pavement and blew out a gas main,
frightening stuff.

blackpool.tower,lightning-1949.jpg
 
I’ve only really had 2 close (ish) encounters with lightning. When I was a young whippersnapper, I was sitting on the window ledge of my open bedroom window watching an absolutely torrential rainstorm hammering down. A lightning bolt seemed to almost travel along the street between the 2 rows of houses. I don’t know why it didn’t strike any of the houses but it sounded like the fabric of the universe was being ripped apart! It genuinely appeared to go along the street and I couldn’t have been much more than 20 feet or so from it.

The second occasion was a bit more random....I was in a great big metal warehouse type pet store in Peterborough buying those mahoosive sacks of dry dog food for my pooches. There was another thunderstorm going on outside.
As I pushed my flatbed trolley down one of the aisles I became aware that I was walking into a weird, intense, physical electrical build up and I could feel the hairs on my head (now long gone unfortunately) standing up. I did a quick U turn and decided to try a different aisle instead. I didn’t have the presence of mind to hang around and see if anyone else got zapped and looking back on it I find my reaction to be rather unworthy of a fan of Fortean happenings seeing as all I did was merrily continue shopping!
 
The second occasion was a bit more random....I was in a great big metal warehouse type pet store in Peterborough buying those mahoosive sacks of dry dog food for my pooches. There was another thunderstorm going on outside.
As I pushed my flatbed trolley down one of the aisles I became aware that I was walking into a weird, intense, physical electrical build up and I could feel the hairs on my head (now long gone unfortunately) standing up. I did a quick U turn and decided to try a different aisle instead. I didn’t have the presence of mind to hang around and see if anyone else got zapped and looking back on it I find my reaction to be rather unworthy of a fan of Fortean happenings seeing as all I did was merrily continue shopping!
Is a Peterborean, I suspect it was wise not to compound the mistake of entering Peterborough with taking risks with lightning.
 
There are photos online of people with their hair standing on end during storms. :oops:

This would NEVER happen to me. I'd be safely indoors.
 
I do like a really good lightning storm though...... I track them from lightningmaps.org when I know there’s going to be some activity.......it’s disappointing when a storm cell misses you by a few miles or so...very frustrating!
 
My dear old grandma was sitting a storm out in her house she had all the windows open etc etc
When there was a huge bang and a brilliant bright blue ball of light came in through the window bounced off the wall and the ceiling and shot up the chimney destroying the chimney stack and the pots.
Grandma bit the filter off her ciggy and dived over the back of the sofa screaming the devil was after her.
My uncle Chris who was a witness to all this didn’t know wether to laugh scream or run for it.
 
18 elephants killed this time.

Lightning is believed to have killed a herd of 18 wild Asiatic elephants in remote north-eastern India, a forest official said.

The elephants, including five calves, were found dead during rains in the protected Kondali forest reserve, wildlife official Jayanta Goswami said.

The forest guard reached the remote area on Thursday and found 14 elephants dead on top of a hill and four at the bottom.
Preliminary reports by veterinarians said the elephants were struck by lightning, but tests are being carried out to ascertain the exact cause of death.

The reserve is in Assam state’s Nagaon district, 95 miles east of Gauhati, the state capital. Assam is home to an estimated 6,000 or more wild Asiatic elephants who constantly come out of the forests in search of food.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40289117.html
 
The second occasion was a bit more random....I was in a great big metal warehouse type pet store in Peterborough buying those mahoosive sacks of dry dog food for my pooches.
Was that in Dogsthorpe?
 
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