Don't mess around with lightning - I learned a lesson

[W1RKW]

I had an interesting experience with yesterdays thunderstorms that rolled through CT.

I had just finished unplugging everything in the house and disconnecting the ham antenna and putting feedlines outside so I wouldn't have to worry about burning down the house in the event of a lightning strike.   After I was done I decided I was going to watch the storm from the garage.

So I went out to the garage and I was standing in the garage enterance leaning up against the metal rail the garage door rides in, not thinking about this.  I watched and listened as the storms approached.  The lightning strikes were getting closer with delays in thunder averaging about 2 seconds.  I knew a big cell was approaching fast.  About 5 minutes later a couple of powerful strikes hit nearby, one somewhere in the neighborhood.  The flash and bang were nearly instantaneous.  Remember, I'm still leaning up against the metal rail standing in rain water that had splashed into the garage entry way, in addition, to wearing wet boatshoes.  

Being the idiot I can be sometimes I didn't think of the dangerous situation I was in until it happened.  Another nearby strike induced a pretty sizeable voltage into the metal rail.  The surge went up my arm, down my side and right leg to my right foot (the foot that was standing in the puddle). To make a long story short, the jolt woke me up rather quickly.  I closed the garage door and waited out the storm in the house.  I don't think I'll be watching storms outside ever again.

I've had lightning inside the house before from antenna wires that were disconnected but still inside laying on the floor.  I've seen lightning jump out of wall sockets. I've seen it blow brick chimneys and trees apart. I've seen what it can do to electrical panels and underground wiring. But I've never been in contact with it before until yesterday.  It was a strong startling jolt but fortunately not strong enough to knock me to the ground or be lethal. It certainly was startling enough to make a wake up call.

Protect yourself when storms come around.  There's something to be said about the warnings the weather experts give out.

[Jack-KA3ZLR-]

The winter of 74-75 my brother and I were doing some work for Pap at another Farm as a Favor Pap made to his friend, and we ended out late later then we planned, and that was the winter we had that real bad Lightening storm come through and dumped a foot or better of snow on us down here Man it just went to hecll in a hand basket, anyways it was on a Sunday evening if I remember correctly and we had school the next day, so we were in a Hurry to get home Timeline was about 8:00Pm, Man it was Snowing like a white out, Roads were closing left and right we ended up on back roads Couldn't see Nothing Dark, and Bang a Bolt of lightning Blew right accross the front of the truck hit this tree on the left side My brother locked it up, went sideways for about 30 yards stopped and for what seemed like 20 minutes neither one of us could see Nothing That bolt was so bright..White bright..Blinding...I've watched Pap weld then look away then look on never had a problem we all did, But that Bolt The tree vaporized there was just pieces on the ground when we could finally see Nothing No trunk Just pieces...

Not to fool with i agree...

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

Back in the late 50s, I was at the local beach one summer day.  There were a bunch of us out in the shallow water, maybe 50 people of all ages enjoying the beach, and the clouds got dark and there was lightning, and we watched... then, lightning hit the bay, and we all felt it, and whoooooooaaahhh, we got out of there.  I got up near the concession stand and took a drink from the water fountain there.  While I was doing that, another lightning bolt hit the bay, and I tasted it in the stream from the fountain.  Whoa...

[k4kyv]

I was in Ethiopia (now Eritrea) in the late 60's.  A storm came up, and it hailed about three feet of marble-sized hailstones.  When the storm was over it looked like a heavy snowstorm.  It took about 3 days for it all to melt, even though it was only about 15° north of the equator.

They told me they had a word for that kind of storm in the local language, and that it happened about once every 20 years.

There was lightning during that storm, but it was pretty uneventful.

[W2JBL]

in summer 1975 i was working at a local ship yard on a 40 foot fiberglass sloop, with a mast about 50 feet high. towering above me was the yard's biggest crane, with boom some 150 feet over me. as the storm cell grew close i assumed that if anything got hit it would be the crane, which was whacked many times before. WRONG!!! CRACK! BAM! a huge bolt hit the masthead. i was sitting in the cockpit and the flash blinded me, but after the flash and blast i heard water running. so,  i went below to find the bolt had come down the mast, jumped a foot to the head (toilet to you lubbers) split the bowl in half (!)  and found it's path to ground through the discharge fitting in the hull, which was now vaporised! water was coming in (fast!) from a 3 inch hole three feet below the waterline. by the time we got the pumps in her the water was above the cabin floorboards and rising fast. don't remember being shocked by this, but i was deaf for a few days. nasty biz this lightening!

[WA1GFZ]

I guess RKW was shunt fed off the door rail. Just think if you were 6 inches taller the voltage could have baked you.
You ever get a chance go to LTI in N.W. Mass. They homebrew some serious bolts. One generator is a very large bank of caps to start the arc and about 100 car batteries in series to keep the arc flowing.
I'm told it shakes the building. They are expanding their operation for even bigger bolts.

[W1UJR]

LTI?

[AJ1G]

I remember as a kid  getting a lightnng jolt from an outdoor  metal shower head valve pull chain at summer camp.  Could hear storms in the distance, but nothing close.

Also got a zice zap from a balloon supported vertical long wire feed line at a field day when storms were in the area.  I always think of that when I'm racing to disconnect my feed lines and leave them outside when a storm comes in fast.

Worst lightining hit here happened when I was away on travel many years ago.  The XYL had unplugged all the big stuff in advance luckily.  Lightning hit the power line across the street from the house.  Blew out the bulbs in the kitchen overhead light, took out a clock radio I had in the garage, and kicked the fridge into permanent defrost.  The thunderclap actually made the window shades roll up, just like in the movies!  And there was a foot diameter hole in the ground around the service entrance ground rod where the soil vaporized.