The Met Office has issued several “yellow storm warnings” for the UK, highlighting the potential for frequent lightning strikes.
And while your chances of being struck by lightning are low, it’s important to know how to stay safe during a storm. Worldwide, approximately 24,000 people are killed by lightning each year and another 240,000 are injured. Most people are familiar with basic hurricane safety, such as avoiding standing under trees or near windows and not talking on a wired phone (cell phones are safe).
But did you know that you should avoid showering or washing dishes during a typhoon?
To understand why, you first need to know about how storms and lightning work.
There are two main factors that cause hurricanes to develop: moisture and rising warm air. High temperatures and humidity create large amounts of moist air that rise into the atmosphere, where it can become a hurricane.
Clouds contain millions of water and ice droplets, and their interaction creates lightning. Rising water droplets collide with falling ice droplets, passing them with a negative charge and leaving themselves with a positive charge.
In a thunderstorm, the clouds act like giant Van de Graaff generators that separate positive and negative charges to create large charge separators within the clouds.
When clouds move over the earth, they create an opposite charge on the earth, pulling a weak shock toward the earth. The storm balances its charges and does so by oscillating between positive and negative fields.
This discharge path usually has the least resistance, so highly conductive objects (such as metal) are more likely to collide during a storm. And the most useful tip for a storm is this: When it’s thundering, go inside. However, this does not mean that you are completely safe from the storm. And there are some activities that can be dangerous, like staying indoors during a storm.
Unless you’re sitting outside on a toilet or showering in the rain, you’re less likely to get struck by lightning. But if lightning strikes your house, the electricity will follow the path of least resistance to the ground.
Things like metal wires or water in your pipes provide a convenient conductive path for electricity to pass through the ground.
The shower provides these two things (water and minerals), making it an ideal way to transmit electricity.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly encourages people to avoid all water-based activities during storms—even when washing—to reduce the risk of infection.
There are other dangers to watch out for during a storm. What is not obvious is leaning against the concrete wall. While concrete itself is not conductive, it can provide a conductive path for lightning strikes if reinforced with metal beams (called “rebars”).
Also, avoid using anything plugged into an electrical outlet (computers, TVs, washing machines, dishwashers), as these can all provide avenues for lightning strikes.
As a general rule, if you hear thunder in the distance, you’re close to a storm, even if it’s not raining.
Lightning strikes can occur up to ten miles from the main storm.
The report was prepared under the supervision of James Rawlings, Professor of Physics at Nottingham Trent University.
Source: Science Alert
Source: Arabic RT
