"Bill in Co" wrote in message
...

Buffalo wrote:
"Paul" wrote in message ...

Buffalo wrote:
"Buffalo" wrote in message ...

"Paul" wrote in message ...

Norm X wrote:
I am in the lightning capital of the world and I have not lost
anything in 30 years.

I live on the Western side of the Salish Sea (not Salton Sea) and no
one remembers lightning nor static electricity. I guess the salt air
is a good conductor.

Then what's this fuss all about ?

http://www.kp44.org/LightningProtect..._Standards.php

Same sort of practical advice.

http://l-36.com/read_html.php?file=l...g%20Protection

I have to laugh at this section.

"You are two miles from shore. The thunderstorm which is
now five miles away is traveling in your direction at
20 miles per hour, which means it could be overhead within
15 minutes. Can you reach shore--two miles away--and seek
shelter within that time? You better move!"

That link also says: " This potential may be as much as 100 million
volts. To help you understand the magnitude of this voltage, the
voltage
needed in an automobile to cause a spark plug to fire is only 15 to
200
volts! And the spark plug gap is but a fraction of an inch! "
15 volts will not jump a normal spark plug gap and neither will 200
volts. Most of the time the voltage is well above 10,000 volts.
Just makes me wonder how knowledgeable the author is on the high
voltage and amperage of lightning.
Ah yes, Gilligan's Island.

But, once the air is ionized, then it might only take the low amt of
voltage to continue the arc. Perhaps that is what he was talking about.

Let's say the breakdown voltage of dry air was 50,000 volts per inch.
If we had 100,000,000 volts to work with, that's 2000 inches or 167
feet.
That means we can't get a good discharge, without some other
mechanism at work.

That's where ionization and eventual plasma formation come in. Which
aren't discussed in enough detail here, for my liking.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nat...lightning2.htm

The lightning bolt can go "up and down" several times, when
a bolt hits. So the process is pretty complicated.

And as that page points out, everything involving lightning
involves the "assignment of probabilities". Using lightning
protection structures, does not guarantee where the bolt
will hit. It improves the probability a bit, that you
are in control of where it goes, but the lightning can still
surprise you, shoot through the side of the house, and so on.
When they tell you to stand in a certain place to be
safe, it's not really a guarantee of your safety (the so-called
"cone of protection"). Things that are safe bets, would be
standing tangentially versus radially, to an object affording
protection. As the electric field when the bolt strikes the
ground, makes "circular rings of potential difference" at ground zero
point. If you're standing radially with respect to where the bolt
hits, a potential is placed between your two feet, and your
balls get burned :-) If you're standing tangentially
to the rings of potential difference, there is no
potential difference between your feet. Maybe the best
advice, is to stand with your feet... really close
together :-) Just in case you're a bit too flustered
at the time, figuring out what is radial and what is
tangential. And why did this tree just fall on me.

Paul
If you stand with your feet apart and are perpendicular to the rings,
then
most likely you heart will suffer more than your balls.
But, by saying a spark will jump the gap of an automobile spark plug with
as
low as 15volts, is total nonsense.

Yeah, I'd say! :-) So, so much for that link!
Next thing I expect to hear is about people getting electrocuted off of a
12V car battery! Uh-huh!
Depends if you are standing with your feet apart and parallel to the battery
posts or perpendicular to the line of the battery posts.
That link does have a lot of useful and accurate info, AFAIK.
--
Buffalo