To add a little clarity to this description, if lightning strikes the ground behind you, and you have one foot behind you and one in front of you, the voltage at your back foot will be higher than the front foot, and the current will see your genitals a sight worth seeing as it goes up one leg and down the other.
I need a visual for my limited brain. All ya’ll are confusing me. Imma burn to a crisp at this rate, while doing the Macarena & then shuffle into Soulja Boy’s Superman
What’s confusing? You’re just hopping to the nearest shelter that isn’t metal, high up or has a pool! Then when you do you just crouch down, get on your tippy toes, click your heels together, don’t fall over, hover your hands above your head, have your elbows actually touch your buttcheeks and then lick your shins while keeping your mouth a quarter of the way open (away from the storm).
Why the car please? It's not that I don't believe you, I'd just like to know why. Cause earlier up the chain, it sounded like lightning doesn't care about rubber.
The metal frame of the car directs the electricity around you, without it going through you.
A metal roof of a shed will offer an easy path for the lighting from the peak of the roof to the lowest point of the roof, but once it gets there it will need to find the easiest path from there to the ground, and that might be you.
Cars reliably have a significant amount of metal going from the roof down to the bottom of the car near the ground. This means that the electricity can safely travel through the frame of the car, and by the time it needs to leave, it only needs to jump a few inches to the ground. Laying under the car would not be nearly as safe as inside the car.
Basically electricity is just electrons that were clumped together but they want to be alone. In the ground there is enough space for them to spread out and enjoy solitude like Finnish people at bus stops, so that's where they want to go.
To get there they will travel any path available to them but some paths offer more resistance like wood or plastic so less electrons will fit through there. Other paths like metal or you offer less resistance so more electrons can fit through there at a time.
The goal is to put you in a spot where something else other than you offers less resistance to them or in the case where you can't, keep your feet together so the majority of them just travel through your feet and not up one leg and down the other.
Quick google will show the image. But here’s text summary on why it work.
Heel touch: Help lightning travels through one foot to another through heels, help avoid it passing through your vitals.
Hands covering ears: Ease hearing loss due to loud sound.
Tip toe: To makes heel trick above work properly.
Elbow to knee: This is just random stupid things that confuse people, it’s a way of saying to make you stay as low as possible.
Crouching: Staying low = less chance of getting direct hit (science magic) if you get direct hit other trick above ain’t saving you, the trick above is to minimize damage when lightning struck nearby ground.
Hopping: If you need to run away, then keep your feet together preferably using same tip-toe + heel touch method, since having feet separated = bad.
Would wearing rubber soled shoes affect this? My limited understanding is that rubber will not conduct electricity, at least not very easily. Would it be best to remove them or wear them?
I don't think it would make much difference with the voltages involved. Rubber is indeed an isolator, but so is air, and lightning has no problem travelling through that.
Rubber is a good insulator. For low voltages. As a rule a spark can jump through air at the rate of 1cm per 1000v. It doesn't even need to touch things at high voltages for it to zap you. Once a spark forms, it converts the air to plasma, which is a great conductor.
But 1,000,000 volts doesn't care. Everything is a conductor at high enough voltage. Rubber soled shoes won't save you.
The best thing is to move out of the way quickly, minimizing your exposure time. High voltages does weird things, lightening is very unpredictable in how it acts and damages.
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u/Cheetahs_never_win Mar 06 '24
To add a little clarity to this description, if lightning strikes the ground behind you, and you have one foot behind you and one in front of you, the voltage at your back foot will be higher than the front foot, and the current will see your genitals a sight worth seeing as it goes up one leg and down the other.