Bad start to the day

[Toggy]

Up most of last night irrigating (no not irritating). To the uninitiated this is the pumping of a few million litres of water on the paddock to keep the big lawn green. Channel low on water all night; so 6.30am into the water to fix the suction pipe.

At about this time there was thunderstorms brewing 20 mile or so away with some decent bolts of lightning. Sort of fixed the problem so rode the motorbike across the paddock which had about 3 inches of water lying in it. By this time a big black thunder cloud had built up; so I headed got home quickly as we have had a few lightning strikes here (house roof included).

Next minute... craaaack/booom. Lightening strike real close. Almost immediately I could hear the crackling of electrical shorts through the trees about 30 metres away. Obviously the whole ground as well as the water I was riding through was charged because as some water splashed up on my left hand I got a real decent belt from it.

Tended to stuff my whole day. Scared the crap out of me.

Ken

[Clinton1]

Bad news mate. I hate lightning, and play with masts and rigging with work. Storms brewing make me extremely paranoid.

Hope you are not still tingling.

[DanP]

That's shocking news Ken.

[journeyman Mick]

Eeeek :eek: frightening stuff. The most scared I've ever been was when a lightening strike took out the tranformer on the power pole that I was about ten metres away from. It had just started raining but there was no lightening activity yet (this was the first strike). I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up and almost simultaneously there was a deafening crack (the loudest sound I've ever heard), a blinding flash, pyrotechnics from the transformer and me screaming and dropping to the ground. Don't ask me why I reacted the way I did, I don't think my brain could comprehend what I was experiencing Hope you went home and had a stiff drink and chilled out

Mick

[AlexS]

Your fear was well-founded, Ken. In a thunderstorm, the greatest danger is not from a direct hit, (although that can make your day a bit less happy) but from the potential difference (voltage) between the points on the ground where your feet are touching, as the charge radiates from the strike. Often, even wet earth has a high resistance, and it's easier for the electricity to travel via your legs through you, than through the ground.

On the lighter side, some years ago a young lady was sitting at the end of Narrowneck in the Blue Mountains, communing with nature during a thunderstorm. She scored a direct hit, but apart from minor skin burns, she was unharmed. It did, however, blow the backside out of her jeans.

I might say, if it had been me, if the lightning hadn't blown the backside out of my jeans, I'd have done it m'self!

[Iain]

We took a direct hit on the roof of our house near Beechworth, took out the telephones, modem, answering machine and fax, the crap Telstra cordless phone/intercom that was a POS from day one lived.
All replaced on insurance except that, even tried to bribe the assessor

[Ashore]

All replaced on insurance except that, even tried to bribe the assessor

What did you offer him Iain ... the old one

[Toggy]

Mick,

7.16am was a tad early for that, besides had another 14hrs work in front of me. Just had a slow coffee with brekky.

Alex.

The ground was damp alight; about 75mm depth of water. The trees nearby were crackling; just like lots of very loud electric fence shorts. Methinks I was very lucky to be on the motorbike. I have found one electric fence wire with the insulation burnt through. We have had a few direct hits here; a horse, the house roof (luckily the rain put out the smouldering wood), a fence and two trees cut off next door.

They are talking of thunderstorms on NYE. I' m definately staying home and indoors.



Ken

[Clinton1]

I take it the horse went all stiff and smokey?

[fxst]

I take it the horse went all stiff and smokey?

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM fresh kabana
Pete

[Toggy]

Clinton,

Nah, just looked like it was asleep. The only injuries we found were a couple of very small burn marks on it's head & bum. Must have gone in one end & out the other. Didn't find any damage on the hooves & she was standing in water.

Was talking to a friend today & she was saying about this bolt of lightning which went bang in their back yard and nearly blinded her hubby it was that bright. Funny thing was it was the bolt that I saw a few minutes before mine landed. Big co-incidence.

Ken

[Driver]

The nearest I've ever got to being fried was a while back when we lived in Singapore. As you know, that whole region has some spectacular storms.

Where we lived, on the 3rd and 4th floors of a condo, we had a view out of a side window onto one of Singapore's bigger storm drains. It was about 10 metres wide and 6 metres deep.

On the day in question, a Saturday morning, we were hit with a truly impressive downpour. It was amazing, even by Singaporean standards. The water just plummeted down in what looked like a solid mass. My son and I (he was about 5 years old at the time) were sitting looking through the side window, watching the storm drain go from bone dry to nearly full. This took no more than five minutes.

Out of nowhere, a thunderbolt blasted the storm drain right in front of us. It was no more than 15 metres or so from the window. A huge ball of light hit the storm drain. The noise was amazing. It was a combined crack, boom and thud, rattling the entire building. It vaporised the water in the storm drain so that, after the initial blinding flash, there was a huge cloud of steam. In the instant before the steam formed, we saw the dry bottom of the drain.

My little fella was as awestruck as me but he recovered faster. He turned to me and said: "That was good, wasn't it, Dad?"