Lightning’s beauty is striking

The flash was brilliant, with a simultaneous, thunderous “boom!” I wondered where the lightning bolt had struck. 

 

As I emerged from my involuntary crouch, our home seemed to be undamaged. That might be attributable to the lightning rods we had installed, to good luck, or to both. I did find some time later that our landscape lighting was out. The discharge partially melted some of the in-ground stakes and bubbled the paint off in some areas.

 

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, each year lightning strikes the ground in the United States some 25 million times, strikes (directly or indirectly) 400 to 500 people, and kills about 50 of those who are struck. The odds of a home being impacted are roughly one in 200 annually, or 0.5 percent.

 

Daniel Island has certainly seen its share of lightning strikes in recent years with one home significantly damaged just last month. In July of 2023, six Daniel Island homes were struck by lightning in a single day!

 

The National Weather Service, NOAA, and other websites have ample information available for staying safe around electrical storms. If possible, start by going inside! But what is lightning, besides dangerous? It’s powerful, it’s useful, and it’s beautiful!

 

One scienceabc.com article stated that three lightning bolts would power the average home for an entire month. Sadly, many kilovolts arriving all at once are unmanageable, at least today. Strike location and frequency are also sporadic, making their energy unreliable.

 

The Nature Conservancy has partnered with the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network to help restore healthy forest management practices, including using fires from lightning strikes and prescribed burning techniques from centuries ago.

 

Lastly, I absolutely love watching lightning from a plane or across the water, as long as it’s from a safe distance away. Its natural beauty is striking.

 

Lightning is an electrical discharge equalizing two oppositely charged objects, air masses, etc.  Child miscreants like me sometimes dragged sock-covered feet across shag carpet before touching a finger to an unsuspecting sibling’s earlobe. Small-scale “lightning” (and sometimes sibling “thunder”) always resulted!

 

Volcanoes, fires, and even airplanes can create or enhance these discharges as they generate oppositely charged air masses, surfaces, or objects. 

 

I still have not seen anything to rival an F/A-18 Hornet flying a few yards away one night, with everything forward of the cockpit wrapped in a fiery blanket of electricity known as a corona discharge. St. Elmo’s Fire is a (slightly) less impressive electrical phenomenon sometimes seen on airplane windscreens.

 

Fortunately, today’s airliners are built to safely endure lightning strikes and electrical discharges. 

 

Surprisingly, the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, states that the average airliner is struck one to two times per year, yet the last lightning-related airline crash was in 1963. 

 

While getting struck by lightning on the ground or in a boat is extremely dangerous, getting struck on an airliner is usually no big deal.

 

Next time you find yourself near a lightning storm, be sure you are somewhere safe. Then enjoy the show.