How to Survive a Lightning Strike (2014)
As somebody who has not been struck, but been damn close to a strike twice, I&#x27;d like to note that the folk wisdom that your hair stands up (like when you get goosebumps, I guess? Not like an Einstein picture?) before a strike and gives you some kind of warning is utterly false. What you&#x27;re supposed to do when so warned is is unclear, but nevermind that.<p>How close is damn close?<p>This summer I was doing some work on a house when a storm rolled in. Went inside and waited out some heavy wind, lightning and rain. 10 minutes after the rain let up, the guy I was looking at and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and figured we&#x27;d get back to work. I went out to the patio and was pulling the tarp off the tablesaw when lightning struck. I reflexively count after a strike (I spend a lot of time in the woods), and the interval between the lightning and the thunder was long enough to register a lightning strike, but not to begin counting.<p>Needless to say, we went back inside, packed up our stuff there, and started loading the truck. As we were doing so, a fire truck came by inquiring where we might find a nearby address. Knowing that address and the address of the house we were working on let me determine that we were about 80m away from the strike using Google maps.<p>That&#x27;s the second closest I&#x27;ve been. The closest was on the Appalachian Trail in 2010. I ducked into a shelter in the Shenandoahs to wait out a storm. The rain tapered off and stopped, and I figured I&#x27;d shove on for a few more miles before calling it a day (around 3:00 PM). As I was about to leave the shelter, lightning struck close enough that the lightning and thunder registered in my brain essentially simultaneously. Best estimate based on this summer&#x27;s experience? 30m, maybe less?<p>In neither case did my hair stand up. If you need to be closer to the location of the impending strike to observe the phenomenon, I reckon you&#x27;re pretty well boned.<p>If you&#x27;re looking to not get struck by lightning in the first place, which seems advisable based on TFA, I&#x27;d suggest that the notion you&#x27;re going to have some kind of warning before a strike is nonsense.<p>I would similarly note that just because it seems like the storm has passed doesn&#x27;t mean it has. In high school marching band, the rule was that a football game couldn&#x27;t resume until an hour after the last lightning. It seemed ridiculous at the time. Now it seems well-founded.