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Lightning Strikes

COW DUNG REMEDY!

http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IEP20030726125203&Page=P&Title=States&rLink=0

ANGARA: The students of Hesalagarha Rajkiya Vidyalaya, a government-run school located in Angara block of Jharkhand's Ranchi district, are yet to get over the bolt from the blue that rocked this school on Friday afternoon.

More than 399 students were in the school when lightning struck. ``Afterwards I found 15 students lying unconscious inside the hall. I didn't know what to do. I ran out of school and informed the people,'' recalled Principal Sadarnath Mahato.

Though the police station and the primary health centre is located less than four km from this school, it took an hour-and-half for doctors to arrive. By the time doctors led by Devendra Kumar reached, villagers had already provided them ``first-aid''. ``We took these boys out and covered their bodies with cow dung,'' said Ashok Bhokta, a resident.

None of these doctors had any medicine. ``Cow dung is the time-tested and traditional cure for lightning-struck people. Had they not been covered with dung, the scene would have been different,'' said Kumar. This shows the state of health services in the state where more than Rs 15 lakh is spent on a primary health centre annually.

In the absence of medicines, the cow dung worked, said Bhokta. Within a few hours, 13 of these boys gained consciousness and were taken home by parents. Kumar and his team followed them and went from door to door. ``Till midnight, doctors were checking if their heart beat was normal,'' laughed Somra Kacchap.

As two students — Ashamani Tirkey and Pradeep Mahato — didn't gain consciousness despite the cow dung `treatment', their parents admitted them to private clinics. ``Government doctors don't care, they treat you like dirt and prescribe 10 medicines for a simple fever. After we learnt they got a cut on each medicine they prescribed, we stopped going to the government hospital,'' said Radhe Mahato, a relative of Pradeep who was undergoing treatment at Mahadevi Birla Hospital, Mahilong in the adjoining Tatisilwai block.

The villagers are particularly angry with police which did not visit the site. Said a villager: ``They come to inquire about Naxals and launch raid. But despite knowing about the incident, police didn't care to visit us. After the teachers of the school submitted an application informing him about the incident, the Angara Block Development Officer Rajiv Ranjan provided Rs 500 to Kumar as aid and asked him to visit the site.

Ranjan was not available for comment. But a clerk at the block office said: ``The BDO had given the money from his pocket.'' Meanwhile, Ranchi District JD-U president Banmali Mahato has demanded Rs 10 lakh compensation for the treatment of the affected students. Nobody in the government has reacted to the demand so far.
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More footballers killed by lightning:


Teenage footballers killed in lightning strike

Lightning has struck a tree on the edge of a municiple soccer field in Central mexico, killing six children and injuring four others. Police in Michoacan state said dozens of 13 and 14-year-old children from the Monarcas youth team were practising in a park with more than 30 soccer fields in Morelia when a sudden storm blew over their heads.
As torrential rain fell for 40 minutes, 10 of the children sought shelter underneath a tree that was struck by lightening, caught fire and came crashing down on their heads. Six children were killed instantly, while four others were rushed to area hospitals suffering from severe burns and serious head wounds.
Governor Victor Manuel Tinoco said that the soccer team was not properly supervised by coaches and parents and ordered the park be closed pending a full investigation of the incident.

Ananova 8th September 2001
 
Footballer killed by lightning strike

A 23-year-old man has been killed when he was struck by lightning as he came off a football pitch to escape a sudden rain shower. Darren Griffiths, of Leicester, died instantly and two friends were injured as they walked down a tree-lined path. They heard a distant rumble of thunder before a bolt of lightening threw them to the ground, a friend said. Lee Eliot, 23, and Carl Smith, 30, recovered from the shock of the blast to find their team-mate, who they nicknamed Tino, had been killed.

The three men had just walked on to the pitch in Leicester for their first training session of the season on Saturday afternoon when the rain started. Realising few people had turned up, they decided to return to their cars to shelter until more of their team-mates from the Metro 76 football club arrived. As they walked down a leafy path leading from Aylestone Recreation Ground to the car park, the bolt of lightning struck, knocking them all to the floor. Richard smith, 37, said the trio, which included his brother carl, had just reached the last tree on the path when the tragedy occured.

Mr Smith, secretary of the Metro 76 club said: "Another friend, Pete, was walking about 30ft behind and he saw them all fall down and thought they were messing about. lee got up and shouted help and it was only then he realised something terrible had happened. Carl couldn't feel his leg after the blue lightening, it was white like a sheet of paper and his knee was blue. He crawled over two darren and tried to give him CPR but he knew he was dead as soon as he got there."

The three were taken to hospital, where Mr Griffiths was pronounced dead. Mr Smith and Mr Elliot were released later that same day.

Ananova
5 August 2002
 
Question about lightning

Dear physicists,

Trivial question from the woefully uninformed

How come lightning always strikes the highest place? (I get the bit about line of least resistance, etc, but how does it "know" where to aim?).

Or does it strike upwards from highest point to clouds?

Confused,
Brislington.
 
Prior to electrical storms, a voltage difference builds up between the earth and the sky. But this electrical field, or gradient, is not uniform.

In conductors (and in the wet, everything can be a conductor) the field is strongest on pointed objects, ie trees, church spires, etc., so these are where the lightning is likely to strike.

Lightning conductors try to use this effect in reverse, as it were, concentrating the field but providing a good pathway for the voltage to discharge to earth. They actually bleed off the charge, making a lightning strike less likely, but if there is a strike nevertheless, the conductor takes most of the current rather than the building it's on.


Edit: Much more detailed (but readable, not over-technical) explanation here
(Amusing animated graphics three quarters of way down page!)
 
Lightning and God's Judgment on the Wicked

From 1959 through 1994 there were 1,523 killed by lightning in Florida and only 79 in California. So much for California's reputation as the Sodom and Gommorah of the XXth century!

Then again, the Prophet Ezekiel says that the sins of Sodom were (1) pride; (2) sloathe (3) fulness of bread and (4) strengthening not the hands of the poor. Nothing there about fruits and nuts, not even granola. In fact, sounds a bit like the platform of the Republican Party.

Jeb Bush, watch out! That lightning strike may have been your warning shot over the bow!

NOAA Map of Lightning Casualties 1959-1994
Source URL: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/cae/svrwx/lightningdeaths.htm
 
How to Avoid Being Killed by Lightning

1. Lie low.
2. Be a woman (men are seven times more likely to be hit by lightning than women)
3. Stay indoors, preferably in the cellar
4. Move to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. It is the sunniest place in Canada and also one of the coldest and driest.

Actually, the big risk factors are being outdoors, waving an iron club around, just before a thunderstorm hits, instead of high-tailing it back to the 19th hole for a shot of bourbon. That is why there are so many lightning deaths in Florida.

If the number of lightning strikes is any indicator, God has it in for the African Highlands, the Amazonian Basin, and the United States of America. Being a desert storm god, He has a soft spot in his Heart for the Sahara.

The overall best place to be if you hate electrical storms is an igloo. There were only 3 lightning deaths in Canada in 2000 despite the fact that the population is huddled next to the American border for warmth. This is the sole known advantage to Canadian winters as far as non-skiers are concerned.

You can, however, be killed by lightning whilest skiing. So stay in the lodge and drink Irish Coffees until you fall off of the stool
 
Heard on the radio this morning that a lightning strike is thought to have triggered the biggest ever power cut in North America, but I can't find a link yet.

The power cut itself is discussed here


EDIT:
One possibility was a lightning strike in the Niagara region on the U.S. side of the border, according to the Canadian Department of National Defense. A spokeswoman for the Niagara-Mohawk power grid said the cause was still unknown, but that it was not a lightning strike.
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from http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/14/power.outage/index.html
 
Rynner: "As two students — Ashamani Tirkey and Pradeep Mahato —
didn't gain consciousness despite the cow dung `treatment', their parents
admitted them to private clinics. ``Government doctors don't care, they
treat you like dirt . . ." :p :p


Officer, I assure you that my prong was struck by lightning and not merely
injured on an electric fence. At the moment you arrived I was applying Angara
First Aid direct from the source. :rolleyes:
 
Summer is the main lightning season:
11 Campers Struck By Lightning During Talent Show
PELHAM, N.H. -- Nearly a dozen people were hit by lightning Wednesday when it struck a small lifeguard building along the shore of Long Pond at Veteran's Memorial Park in Pelham, N.H., according to a report.

WCVB-TV reported that 15 campers were inside the building -- 11 children and four camp staff members. The children were between the ages of 6 and 8.

According to officials, everyone was conscious before being taken to the hospital, but some of the children did have some minor burns on their arms and legs.

Staff injuries were reportedly more serious and those victims are being checked for neurological problems. The campers were on the shores of Long Pond having a talent show when it began to rain at 4 p.m.

The staff reportedly moved the children inside the small lifeguard building. Lightning then reportedly struck the building and came through the front door. There is no visible damage on the building and investigators do not know where exactly the lightning hit.

"There was lightning hitting the windows and all the shocks were coming in, and so then they moved us to the bathrooms, where it was much safer," said one camper.

The campers who were not injured were released to their parents.
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Lightning strike kills British newlywed
A British newlywed has died after being struck by lightning while on her honeymoon in Mexico, it is reported.
Melissa Lerner, 29, was walking on a beach at Playa del Carmen near the resort of Cancun with her husband Damon when she was struck.

Mr Lerner, also 29, an accountant from Edgware, London, was knocked unconscious and awoke to find people trying to revive his bride, The Times reported.

He said he thought he was saved because he was wearing flip-flops on the beach.

His wife, a primary school teacher, was pronounced dead at a local medical centre - just nine days after their wedding.

Mr Lerner told The Times: "I was holding her and told her I was there with her, but I knew that really she had gone. I could see the life draining away from her.

"I don't know whether it's fate, destiny or what it was. There were so many reasons why we shouldn't have been at that spot that day."

He flew back to Britain on Thursday and his wife's body is expected to be flown back in time for the funeral next week.

A British Embassy spokesman in Mexico City confirmed the death.
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Another factoid new to me, or so old I'd long forgotten it (from the same book that mentioned the 'longest view on Earth...'.)

The narrator is caught in an African thunderstorm:

"That slightly acrid but not unpleasant smell that comes with such storms filled the air. I used to think it comes from dust suddenly laid by the rain, but no - actually it comes from the nitrogen fixed as nitrates in the water by lightning, and without it no plants would grow. Anywhere. Not many people know that."

As Bad As It Gets - Julian Rathbone, 2003
 
Lightning strick may have enabled jail break
LUXORA -- The recent escape from the Mississippi County Law Enforcement Center may have been the result of damage caused to the jail's electronic security systems by a lightning strike.

Mississippi County Sheriff Leroy Meadows told the members of the county Police, Fire and Safety Committee Tuesday that the two men who escaped had been in the jail for extended periods of time, one for one year and the other for three years.

"They probably know more about the jail operation than some of the jailers," he said.

The two had recently been moved from the juvenile facility to the adult facility and were familiar with both facilities, he said.

A lightning strike during a thunderstorm about two weeks ago had seriously damaged the control boards which operate the interior jail automatic locking doors, Meadows said, causing them to periodically pop open.

The two inmates knew this, he said, and knew the sequence that had to occur in order for them to escape from the section in which they were housed. They also managed to get their hands on the only pass key in existence that would open all of the interior doors. That situation is still under investigation, Meadows said, and the information will be released as soon as the investigation is complete.

When the sequence required for them to escape occurred, the two inmates left the facility and used blankets to climb over the fence.

Meadows said the two lost their shoes and shed their uniforms.

"They were wearing nothing but their shorts," he said.

The two were later captured in or near Osceola as a result of a number of tips from citizens. Meadows said the full investigation into the incident should be completed later this week.

In the meantime, Meadows said he is in the process of assessing the full damage caused by the lightning strike. Nearly 0 dollars in repairs to the main computer server, individual computers and exterior surveillance cameras have already been completed, he said, and a claim has been filed with the insurance company.

If the insurance covers the damage, Meadows said that money will be used to make some of the other repairs needed for damage to the video switcher, wireless communications systems and computer terminals. It will not be enough to cover the more than ,500 in repair costs for these things, he said.

In addition, the damage to the main security control boards, which control the locks on the facility doors among other things, has been repaired enough to utilize the system temporarily. The company that installed the system gave an estimate of 0,000 for completely repairing that system, Meadows said.

He added that another company has given him an estimate of ,000 for a new computer-based touch-screen system that would be much more up to date than the current system. Meadows asked the committee to consider transferring funds into his account for purchase of this new system.

Meadows added that all computer equipment at the jail is connected to APC boxes, but those boxes did not stop the damage.
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So nearly a really great Strange Death(s) - the moral is make sure you peep with other people.

Lightning strikes peeping toms


Taipei - As if it was divine retribution, three men were struck recently by lightning while they peeped at a pair of passionate lovers having sex in a car in a hillside area in Taipei, police said on Sunday.

Hiding in a broken hut and each using a high-powered telescope, the three were so oblivious as they watched the lovers' act that they did not notice lightning flashing in the sky before a bolt hit the hut, the police said.

"All three were hit at the same time, but survived as they appeared to have evenly shared the impact of the super-high voltage electric current when the lightning struck," a police spokesperson said.

The officer said the three, who remained speechless for several hours, suffered minor burns in the skin of their hands and legs, while their hairs were all standing and their stares were fixed.

Doctors later said the three had a narrow escape because if there had been only one of them in the hut, the one struck would have been killed instantly, the police officer quoted a diagnosis report as saying.

As for the lovers, they quickly drove the car away after the lightning flashed and heavy rains started pouring down ... without even knowing what had happened, the officer said.
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http://www.news24.com/News24/Backpage/BetweenTheSheets/0,,2-1343-1346_1374033,00.html
 
Jesus actor struck by lightning.....twice

Some news stories are just too good.

I think the actor and Mel GIbson should be getting very worried by this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/3209223.stm

Jesus actor struck by lightning

Actor Jim Caviezel has been struck by lightning while playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of Christ.
The lightning bolt hit Caviezel and the film's assistant director Jan Michelini while they were filming in a remote location a few hours from Rome.

It was the second time Michelini had been hit by lightning during the shoot.

Neither of them was badly hurt, according to the film's producer Steve McEveety.

Michelini had previously been struck during filming in Matera, Italy, when he suffered light burns to his fingers after lightning hit his umbrella.

Describing the second lightning strike, McEveety told VLife, a supplement of the trade paper Variety: "I'm about a hundred feet away from them when I glance over and see smoke coming out of Caviezel's ears."

The Passion Of Christ, which was filmed in the ancient languages of Latin and Aramaic, is directed and co-written by actor Mel Gibson and focuses on the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus.

Although it is not due for release until early next year, it has already hit headlines after Jewish figures in the United States slated it for being "dangerous" and portraying Jews in a negative way.

Originally titled The Passion, the film changed its title last week after Miramax claimed the rights to the title for one of its own projects, a historical epic based on a Jeanette Winterson novel.

The film now looks set to be released in the States by independent distributors Newmarket Films, who released Memento and Whale Rider in the US.
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Mods, shift this or merge it as appropriate, couldn't decide where was the best place for it.

EDIT: you have been murged! - ryn
 
Seeing as how he holds our nation responsible for the ills of the world i'm sure Gibson's now convinced that God is an Englishman. :cool:




which of course he is...




if he exists at all...
 
Um... Back to square one?

Thunderstorm Research Shocks Conventional Theories; Florida Tech Physicist Throws Open Debate On Lightning's Cause
Melbourne, Fla. – If Joseph Dwyer, Florida Tech associate professor of physics, is right, then a lot of what we thought we knew about thunderstorms and lightning is probably wrong.

In the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award winner caps two years of lightning research with a startling conclusion: The conditions inside thunderstorms that were long thought necessary to produce lightning actually do not exist in nature.

"For generations, we've believed that in order to produce a lightning discharge, the electric fields inside storms must be very big, similar to the fields that cause you to be shocked when you touch a metal doorknob," said Dwyer.

The problem is scientists have searched inside thunderstorms for many years, looking for these large electric fields, only to come up empty handed. Some researchers have suggested that maybe we haven't been looking hard enough; maybe the big electric fields are really there, but they were somehow just missed. Now, Dwyer's new theory shows that these searches were actually in vain; super-sized fields simply don't exist, period.

"What we've discovered is a new limit in nature. Just as a bucket can only hold so much water, the atmosphere can only hold a certain sized electric field. Beyond that, the electric field is stunted by the rapid creation of gamma-rays and a form of anti-matter called positrons," he said.

While Dwyer's research shows that lightning is not produced by large, unseen electric fields inside storms, the triggering mechanism remains a mystery.

"Although everyone is familiar with lightning, we still don't know much about how it really works," said Dwyer.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Florida Institute Of Technology.
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I have in front of me a strange little book called "The Report of the Lightning Rod Conference" pub:1882. The aim was to bring together electricians, meteorologists, architects etc. to standardise the production of lightning protection on buildings. They had asked gentlemen from around the world to submit reports of damage from strikes, and firms to send examples of their products after such events. Interestingly, they categorize: sheet lightning - discharge between clouds, disruptive discharge - strikes to earth and globe lightning - a ball of discharge, not recognized by scientists later on as existing! The purpose of the conductor is stated as to carry the charge safely into the ground from the spike, but also to 'silently discharge static from clouds and the air' thus preventing a strike. There are some amazing descriptions of damage... In one case a church spire was destroyed during a storm and the investigators discovered that although the installation was good, the conductor ended in a glass bottle on the ground at the bottom of the wall! Not much of the gin bottle left? Another strike on Berehaven lighthouse caused havoc and much damage destroying the keeper's toilet and seat (good job he wasn't on it!) in the process. A strike on Nash low lighthouse broke chairs, tables and so on in the kitchen and blew the keeper out of his bed ( he lived to tell the tale) reported by Michael Faraday no less.Finally, one for Eboracum, lightning struck Bootham Bar in York in june 1876, where it split a gas pipe leading to a lamp on on the house just inside the Bar causing a fire, but leaving the lead lined roof of the bar intact. A precursor to the strike on the Minster, which I remember seeing on tv. some years back. ( My ex still has a keyring made from a bit of the burned roof beam.)
 
"..the bolt hit the jet's LEFT wing.."

perhaps God was trying to tell our Tory - sorry, Tony something?
 
Everything we know about how lightening works is wrong?

Astrophysicist strikes blow to lightning theory
Model suggests electric fields cannot grow large enough to generate bolts.
17 November 2003
BETSY MASON

The conventional view of how lightning is produced is wrong, according to a Florida-based physicist.

Electrical fields in the atmosphere simply cannot grow large enough to trigger lightning, calculates Joseph Dwyer of the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne1. "This means back to the drawing board," he says.

Dwyer mainly studies high-energy particles in space. But two years ago, after moving to central Florida, one of the most lightning-prone areas of the world, he became intrigued by reports of huge gamma-ray and X-ray bursts associated with lightning. Such high-energy radiation tends to be seen only in outer space, as moving through Earth's atmosphere slows it down.

Most scientists believe lightning is generated when a giant electric field builds up in the atmosphere. Although no one has actually seen such a field, researchers assumed that this was simply because they hadn't looked hard enough.

When Dwyer factored the production of high-energy radiation into a model describing the build-up of electrical fields in thunderstorms, he got a shock. He found that the release of gamma-rays and X-rays diffuses the electric field, preventing it from becoming large enough to spark lightning.

"This may be a significant theoretical breakthrough," says Martin Uman who studies lightning at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "It shows how large doses of x-rays and gamma rays can be formed in small volumes," he says.

The true origin of lightning remains a mystery. Dwyer suspects that the same process that limits fields could actually concentrate charge in some areas just long enough to trigger lightning.

Limiting factor

Electric fields grow inside thunderstorms when updrafts and downdrafts push water molecules past each other causing them to shed electrons. These electrons can eventually overcome the drag associated with travelling through air and speed up. "Some electrons accelerate to close to the speed of light," says Dwyer.

This may be a significant theoretical breakthrough
Martin Uman University of Florida

According to his model, these high-speed electrons bump into other particles, knocking off more electrons until a burst of gamma or X-rays releases the energy from the electric field, reducing its charge. "This really is a fundamental limit on how much voltage can exist in electric fields," says Dwyer.

http://www.nature.com/nsu/031110/031110-19.html
 
Bump! BRF's post added to this thread. (It amplifies my post above.)
 
More Lightning research

Mythology considered lightning the plaything of "the gods." Science explained its atmospheric physics. Now research shows it also can be shaped by human hands.
Especially in cities.

Recent research suggests that crowded urban centers become "heat islands," whose relative warmth encourages thunderstorms. And pollution from cars and industries encourages lightning strokes.

It's "a very real effect," says Prof. Richard Orville at Texas A&M University in College Station, who has spent several years researching storms around Houston and looking at studies elsewhere. He says there's a higher density of cloud-to-ground lightning strokes in the Houston area than expected naturally and "it's caused by man."

Until recently, however, it wasn't clear which factor played the more important role in creating lightning - heat-island warmth or pollution. Thanks to a discovery made during an exercise in his physical meteorology class, Dr. Orville now thinks he has the answer: pollution.

The class researched 14 years of lightning data, looking for areas of enhanced activity. They found two - Lake Charles and Baton Rouge in Louisiana.

Lake Charles stood out. It's much smaller than Houston, so there's not enough human activity to produce a heat island or to generate much pollution from cars. Yet Lake Charles has as high a density of cloud-to-ground lightning as does Houston.

Orville and his student Scott Steiger soon found the reason.

Lake Charles's air is just as polluted with microscopic particles as is the air over Houston. The source is an industrial area with oil refineries west of the small city.

There's another such industrialized area in a band near Baton Rouge. As Mr. Steiger and Orville explain in their research in Geophysical Research Letters, their finding "strongly suggests that pollution plays a key role in lightning enhancement." They add that other urban influences "can be neglected."

Now Orville wants to know how the pollution effect works.

Meteorologists have a general idea of how thunderstorms generate lightning, but the details of what's going on in the clouds remain obscure.

Thunder clouds concentrate positive electrical charge in their upper region and negative charge lower down. Lightning flashes when the voltage buildup between cloud and ground is strong enough to break down the electrical resistance of the air.

Somehow, the polluting particles enhance a cloud's ability to accumulate electrical charges and build up that critical cloud-to-ground voltage.

Lightning scientists think that the polluting particles may act as nuclei on which water condenses to form cloud droplets.

This happens naturally in clouds, where droplets eventually coalesce into large drops that fall out. Electrical charges are generated along the way.

By flooding a cloud with condensation nuclei, pollution would produce more small droplets than is normal.

Many of these would be caught in updrafts and carried to heights where they would cool to temperatures below freezing and mix with ice crystals. Orville says scientists know that such a mix of supercooled water and ice produces electrical charging.

Orville will look more deeply into this possibility in the summer of 2005, when a project with detailed thunderstorm monitoring, including instruments to penetrate into clouds, gets under way.

Meanwhile, we don't have to mythologize about gods playing with lightning. We're doing it ourselves.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1120/p21s02-sten.html
 
When my eldest son was being taught at home,we made an electroscope - one of those weird thingies in a glass jar that has a pair of gold leaf strips dangling down from a rod connected to a plate on the top of the jar, only we used cooking foil on a hooked end on the rod - he also built a crystal set which was attached to a wire antenna going down the garden. As there was a storm approaching we connected the antenna to the electroscope, and presto!... every time there was a flash the leaves shot apart with amazing energy. Not rocket science but interesting:D
We are way from anywhere down here, stuck out in the sea and very rarely get a storm, but when we do they are usually pretty violent, power often goes off as we have overhead lines, and the last time loads of modems were buggered, including my son's! So take heed, and buy some protection or unplug your line if you live in the country. ;) He got the last replacement available in Penzance, the shop sold out at 40.
We have very little pollution down here, so maybe there is something in the last post (though we have plenty of salt ions, as car owners know!!).
 
Lightning crashes computer systems in Palmerston North

07.04.2004 4.00 pm


Lightning bolts crashed computer systems and could be to blame for trapping 200 people in a Palmerston North city building yesterday.

Workers at the Land Transport Safety Authority's building in King Street said they were locked in their office when security doors froze shut about midday.

The doors locked after lightning struck the city during a hailstorm that swept the area.

The doors act as a barrier between staff and the reception area and provide the main access for staff working in the office.

LTSA manager Brett Dooley said the doors were not shut long enough to cause any problems but staff said the doors were locked for at least an hour.

Elsewhere in Palmerston North, Cook Street resident Marilyn Bulloch said the lightning caused electronically controlled sprinklers at Oderings Nurseries to go on automatically.

Around 10,000 Inspire Net customers around the country lost their internet connection for about 15 minutes when the lightning struck.

Office manager David Mill said it zapped a critical piece of equipment.

There was an uninterrupted power supply in place to stop power surges but the lightning went right through it, he said.

"About 20 things were plugged into it and the lightning took just one out. Everything else was fine. It was a fairly strong strike."
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=3559401&thesection=news&thesubsection=general
 
Lightning kills four farmers in Vietnam

HANOI (AFP) Apr 21, 2004

Four farmers died after being struck by lightning while working in rice paddy fields in Vietnam's southern Mekong Delta, an official said Wednesday.

The men were struck by thunderbolts in four communes of An Giang province during a heavy storm on Friday, an official from Tinh Bien district said.

The victims, who were aged between 24 and 46, died instantly.
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http://www.terradaily.com/2004/040421044123.ea6a6j0a.html
 
How do sprites and the other newly discovered discharges above thunderclouds fit into the picture? And what happens to the electrons removed from the gas atoms to make ions in the ionosphere? There must be enormous fields and electrical energy involved in this.
 
brian ellwood said:
How do sprites and the other newly discovered discharges above thunderclouds fit into the picture? And what happens to the electrons removed from the gas atoms to make ions in the ionosphere? There must be enormous fields and electrical energy involved in this.
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If I understand correctly I think the electrical discharges are the equalising of the electrical potential - I'm not sure of the causes of the actual build up of this potential: general atmospheric processes, cosmic rays? I have been taught some meterology but they do tend to skip rapidly over the higher atmosphere stuff :(

Emps
 
An interesting combination of freakish lightning strikes and rather weird explanations:

Julie Ward inquest told of bizarre Kenyan lightning theory

By David Sapsted
(Filed: 28/04/2004)


A policeman in Kenya came up with a bizarre explanation of how Julie Ward died while on safari in a game reserve, an inquest heard yesterday.

The theory was put forward by David Rowe, who worked as a consultant to the Kenyan police, in a meeting at the British High Commission in Nairobi with John Ward, a fortnight after the charred remains of his daughter were found on Masai Mara reserve 16 years ago.

According to Mr Rowe, Miss Ward, 27, from Bury St Edmunds, could have become lost in the reserve when she went there to photograph wildebeest. At night, he suggested, she had lit a fire and then climbed a tree to keep out of the way of wild animals.

Then she had been struck by lightning with such force that her body had had split apart and the remains had fallen from the tree and been burnt on the fire.

A pathologist, who conducted a second post mortem examination that concluded that Miss Ward's body had been hacked up after she was murdered, described the theory as "utter and absolute nonsense".

Frank Rebeiro, a director of Mr Ward's Butterfly Hotels group who was at the meeting with Mr Rowe, told Dr Peter Dean, the Greater Suffolk coroner, that when he had heard the lightning theory he considered it "bordering on the unreal".

He said that Mr Rowe had proposed that Miss Ward, a publishing assistant, had wandered away from her vehicle after it got stuck in a gully and walked eight miles in flip-flops before setting up camp, lighting the fire and climbing the tree.

Mr Rebeiro said that the policeman had gone on: "As a storm raged, she was hit by lightning so fierce and ferocious that it cut across her bones and she probably fell in the fire and the animals did the rest."

According to Mr Rebeiro, Mr Rowe had continued "with a straight face" that he had seen many incidents such as this. "I didn't take him seriously and I did not believe what I had heard," said Mr Rebeiro.

"In the passage of time I have come to believe that Mr Rowe had come to see us either on his own or at someone's request, to put forward an amazing theory to try to suggest that Julie's death had been caused by some bizarre accident and not foul play as medical evidence suggested."

Prof Austin Gresham, a retired Home Office pathologist, said: "When you are struck by lightning your body doesn't fall into pieces with your legs, arm and head falling off. I hope we don't hear any more of this nonsense. It is monstrous rubbish."

The inquest, finally being held in Ipswich at the conclusion of a police investigation into earlier inquiries into Miss Ward's death, continues today.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...28.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/04/28/ixnewstop.html
 
Lightning Strike Kills 9 Cows, 8 Calves

Fri May 28,10:12 AM ET

A lightning strike on a York County farm left a real shocker in its wake Tuesday, killing half the cows on the farm -- a loss valued at about ,000.


Nine cows and eight calves owned by Glenn and Nancy Shaull died in a flash, literally.

The animals were struck by lightning Tuesday night on the couple's Brogue farm.

"It makes you sick," Nancy Shaull said.

"It hurts. No question, it hurts," Glenn Shaull said.

The Shaulls made the gruesome discovery Wednesday morning.

"I knew it was lightning, no other way," Glenn Shaull said. Glenn Shaull said when it storms cattle bunch together, so when the lightning struck, the animals likely fell like dominoes.

"I'm surprised we didn't lose the whole herd," Nancy Shaull said.

Thirteen cows and eight calves remain. Some of the calves are still suckling, but their mothers were killed by the storm, and that means extra work for the Shaulls if they want these youngsters to survive.

"We have to get special feed. They have to eat," Nancy Shaull said.

Insurance money will likely cover the loss.

"Every time you see a storm coming, we shudder. You just don't know what's coming," Nancy Shaull said.

The killed cattle cannot be eaten. They will be disposed of Thursday.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...d=1025&e=12&u=/ibsys/20040528/lo_wgal/2223928
 
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