Lightning and thunder and rain, oh my

lightning That was quite a storm last night around 9:30 pm or so… intense lighting and thunder for such a long time.

I loved it but if you or your dog have Astraphobia (AKA Brontophobia, Keraunophobia, or Tonitrophobia), it was probably a tough night.

How much total rain did we get? Anyone have a lightning story?

10 Comments

  1. john george said:

    I had a total of 1.9″ of rain, which my lawn really needed. No close lightning strikes, though. Kind of like my golf swing. I never hit the same place twice. Really tees me off! It was quite a light show, as I was driving home from work at that time. Just beautiful!

    August 28, 2008
  2. Patrick Enders said:

    1.9″ – very nice. We lost power for a bit with one of the lightning strikes, and our poor dog was a wreck, so we had to keep the windows closed for her (and by extension, our) sake. Shame, that. I love the sound of a good storm.

    August 28, 2008
  3. Jerold Friedman said:

    We had one lightning strike so close, the air was white and the thunder was instantaneous. I thought it missed us by 100 feet.

    Our dogs fared OK. The older needed assuring pets. The younger wanted to watch the storm with a bowl of popcorn.

    August 28, 2008
  4. Julie Bixby said:

    About a month ago when we had a similar storm lightning (unbeknown st to me) hit my barn. The barn went up in flames the following afternoon. The State Fire Marshall did investigate and deemed the fire was a result of lightning. It is amazing how they can figure that out. It is also amazing that the fire didn’t start immediately but many hours later.
    It is frightening and random. I am lucky that it was not my house and no one or animals were harmed. Still, it is a loss.

    August 29, 2008
  5. john george said:

    Julie- Lighning can do that because it goes into the inside of wood and ignites the inside of a beam or board. This smolders undetected until it get close enough to the outside of the wood to get good oxygen. It then almost explodes into a very intense fire, because it is alreadu built up on the inside. Very fascinating, but scarey. It goes undetected until it is too late.

    August 30, 2008
  6. Patrick Enders said:

    John,
    Well, there’s something new to lie awake at night worrying about.

    Julie, that’s a shame about your barn. Glad everyone was all right.

    August 30, 2008
  7. john george said:

    Patrick- Don’t get all fired up about it! The fire department has infrared sensing equipment that can detect these hot spots, even when they are not evident to the eye. I haven’t been in a building with a lightning strike for probably 30 years, but I remember the event clearly. The bolt followed the nails down the side of the building where the siding was nailed to the studs. On the inside, the studs were spilt open and smoldering right after the strike. Fortunately, this was in the garage where the studs were exposed and we could get at them with a fire extinguisher. I think that if that happened to my present house, I would have the fire department check it out just to be sure.

    August 30, 2008
  8. Greg Sumner said:

    Why don’t people put up lightening rods like they used to? wouldn’t this alleviate the problem?

    August 31, 2008
  9. john george said:

    Greg- I found this interesting url:

    http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lhm/InstallRods.html

    If I understood it correctly, it appears that surge protection is of greater value than lightning protection systems. I sure don’t see lightning rods used anymore like they were when I was growing up on the farm

    September 1, 2008
  10. Griff, you and Robbie might have heard a loud screeching scream about then…that was me. That lightning crack scared the b’Jesus out of me which may be because one stormy night at our place in Oklahoma a lightning bolt struck an oak tree that had already passed over, and man oh man that was loud and scary. Fortunately, no fire ensued, although the oak was amongst many other oaks and rough underbrush. Those post and black oak trees are like ginkgos and some others that are not given to burning, but I had thought that meant from brush fire, not lightning. In Oklahoma, many, if not most of the thunderstorms are very loud and the thunder can be heard as if it is rolling in slowly, ever so slowly, coming from twenty miles away in one full minute…that’s what it sound like anyway.

    Or it might be because of the time I was out at my other sister’s hobby farm in southern Illinois, and no one was around but me. The storm started up normally enough, but then, oh brother, I had never seen so much lightning fire up, and in the daytime. So, I started praying in every corner of the house, and I am really not good with storms like my collie is, so I just kept praying and all of the sudden I looked out and a huge bolt hit just across the road, in the middle of the brand new blue roof of a two story barn. I made the call the volunteer fire department on my cell phone, cuz the hard lines were out, and by golly, they came quickly and saved that barn. All the damage in the roof was a hole the size a person could walk through.

    http://www.compositesworld.com/articles/
    lightning-strike-protection-for-composite-structures.aspx

    September 2, 2008

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