Lightning: Fact Or Fiction?

Reported April 2006

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- We've all been caught in the middle of a storm, but what you don't know about lightning may surprise you! Lightning kills, on average, about as many people each year as tornadoes do, and more than 500 people are injured each year. What else do you need to know about lightning?

First you see it ... Then you hear it! But how much do you know about it?

Storm chaser Lee Nichols, says, "Every now and then you see one that just starts from the middle of the sky and completely covers everything. Fascinating." When he sees clouds roll in, he rolls out! "We have punched a core of a storm, which means driving right through it -- in what’s called a bear cage -- and lightning is just bouncing around all over the place," he tells Ivanhoe. "You’re inside like looking out of lightning bars," he says.

But as close as we can get to it, there's still a lot we don't know about it. Martin Uman, Ph.D., a distinguished professor at University of Florida Lightning Research Group in Gainesville, Fla., says, "One of things we’re trying to do now is understand how it strikes the ground -- how it strikes what it strikes."

Engineer Martin Uman and physicist Joe Dwyer are trying to crack the code and increase safety. Joe Dwyer, Ph.D., a physicist at University of Florida Lightning Research Group, says: "If you are a power company, you’ve got to make sure that lightning is not going to strike one of your poles and cause a blackout. You got to make sure that if lightning strikes your aircraft that you’re not going to get people killed."

The two are literally capturing lightning. They launch a rocket with a wire connected to it out of tubes and into the sky. The rocket snakes its way up to the cloud, finds the charges in the cloud, and then brings the lightning down to the researchers.

Dwyer says they've learned lightning doesn’t come straight down to the ground. It does so in a series of discreet steps.

There are many lightning misconceptions. First, car tires don't protect you -- a couple inches of rubber won't stop a burning bolt, but the metal frame does protect you because the current flows through the metal frame, leaving the occupants unharmed.

Also, did you know lightning could strike 15 miles from rainfall, so it's not safe until 30 minutes after you hear the last thunderclap?

The more facts we learn about lightning, the more we can strike fiction from the flashes.

Another myth: If you touch a lightning victim you'll be electrocuted. The human body doesn't store electricity, so if someone is hit help them immediately.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Karen Rhine
Assistant Director, University Communications
Florida Tech
krhine@fit.edu

For more information on meteorology contact:

The American Meteorological Society
45 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108-3693
http://www.ametsoc.org

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