Give out your address, I am sure someone would love to sell you lightning rods. In storms, the people that follow in after to sell clean up services love homes with lightning rods because they know someone was there before and they are an easy sale. Just facts. No one here will mind that you often times grump at me as is your custom by the way, chip on your shoulder from the clique Mac forum I suspect, no matter, but I doubt very seriously people are going to stand buy and let you tarnish the name of a guy millions of Americans went to bed with four nights a week with for thirty years. Lol. There is a dirty jobs episode where the host is putting on lightning rods on new homes. Pretty entertaining.
Gary, I don't want to come off here like I'm picking at you, but I work in radio communications and am very familiar with lightning protection for communications facilities. I have had extensive training on the subject. Based on that, I really disagree with a lot of what you are saying here. What you are claiming sounds more like folklore and not actual facts. There's no 'mystery' regarding lightning. Some buildings, including houses, can benefit from having lightning rods. For example: a house or building on a hilltop, on the beach, or a wide open plain. Anyplace where it's the tallest structure around, would be a good candidate for lightning rods. I agree though that there are situatons where it isn't necessary and assume that's what you're talking about.
Lightning is too out of control to predict and to big an event to control. You can try, but results are spotty. Do insurance companies give discounts for lightning rods. I have not heard of them doing so.
This is not true and the facts are that lightning strikes are controlled daily all over the world. Maybe your interpretation of controlling a strike and mine are different. When engineering the grounding on a tower for instance , we assume it will be struck sooner or later - probably dozens of times or more . We attempt to control the surge on the tower by creating a low impedance path to ground. I have been involved with hundreds of installations over a long period of time and can't recall any serious lightning damage to any communications gear. I have had several destroyed antennas - all on towers without lightning rods. The radio equipment attached to those antennas suffered no damage.
Lightning struck close by my business weeks ago, and every light went out, TVs out, fish pumps out. Everything went out for a split second and came back on. My lights are like street lights, so they were off 10 minutes before they came back on. I was using my computer at the time. The screen went out and you hear the fans power off. It was fully out. When stuff lit back up again, so did my computer. Same screen, same web site. As if nothing happened. I have no emergency power source or a lightning arrestor. I have no explanation how my computer did what it did. I would say the power was off a half of a second.
What you experienced, was the surge protection equipment of your power company kicking in. A nearby strike creates an electromagnetic field that can induce voltage surges on suspended power lines. It doesn't have to be a direct hit. Your computer has a power supply that converts AC to DC. Initially, the DC has a lot of ripple in the output. To smooth that out and provide a more steady DC output, a large capacitor is used to fill in between those ripples. A capacitor charges up almost like a battery and discharges in this case as the voltage drops between the ripples of voltage. It is likely discharging as the voltage is dropping in the supply when the power goes out and keeps the voltage high enough to maintain your computer. If it had been much longer, it would have shut down.
In rainstorms things get wet. Lightning usually follows the water to the earth or ground. It follows the water because it has the same "signature" as the environment the lightning is in, in the sky. Same ph, similar temperature, same dust particles in the rainwater as in the lightning clouds. This is why people struck by lightning that are wet from rain are seldom killed and why dry people struck by lightning are hurt much worse or killed. Wet objects are covered in natures perfect lightning protection. The problem with lightning is it often strikes before the rains start. The dumbest thing one can do in a thunderstorm is stand under a tree for protection from the rain. Best to stand in the rain as you seek an indoor structure well out of the weather
This is not true either. This "signature" stuff makes almost no sense. I say almost because your theory on wet people surviving more often could be the result of water (which isn't a good conductor of electricity- contrary to popular belief), being more conductive than human flesh and the fact that lightning surges travel more on the surface of conductors. That's actually called 'skin effect', but has nothing to do with actual skin. It's reference to what others here have pointed out regarding the use of wide straps and braided cables over large solid conductors. More surface area for the skin affect. What typically kills is the surge crossing your chest and stopping your heart. I don't follow much about people being struck and statistics, but it might be possible. It certainly has absolutely nothing to do with "nature's perfect lightning protection".
Deadly Facts
- On average, about 200 people are killed by lightning in the United States every year.
- The state of Florida holds the title of the “Deadliest State.” There are twice as many lightning casualties as in any other state.
- The chance to be killed by lightning is 1 in 2,000.000. You have the same chance dying from falling out of bed.
- Never talk on the phone while a storm is breaking outside. Not only do cell phones “attract” lightning, but about 1% of all lightning deaths in the U.S. are a result of people talking inside the home on a corded phone during a thunderstorm.
- About 71% of all people struck by lightning survive. The fatal cases are usually the result of cardiac arrest. However, those who survive often suffer from serious health and psychological problems like loss of memory or sensitivity, insomnia, impaired hearing, or constant pain.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/lightning/resources/LightningFactsSheet.pdf
I know for a fact that cell phones don't attract lightning. I doubt that came from the NWS, but maybe they have an agenda against the cell phone companies. I don't know where you got these deadly facts, but I would challenge the 1% talking on the phone too.
Like I said initially, I don't want to disagree just to disagree with you. It's just that I find much of your post contrary to commonly known facts, physics, and personal experience.
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