Lightning

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Jogeephus

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Years ago I heard that lightning strikes follow paths and can be charted over time. If I remember right the explanation had something to do with a charge from the earth and this will move with time. I don't know if this is true or not but at the time when it was pointed out to me we had three lightning strikes in a neighborhood over a year and the strikes were linear. Anyone heard anything similar to this or is this just BS and lightning is completely random?

Reason this comes to mind is that I lost another cow to lightning in the same field I lost several a while back. (a few years now I think) Thankfully I just lost one this round and not five like the last time. Just curious. Just one of the perks of living next door to the lightning capital of the USA.
 
I'm hoping not.. had lightning strike WAY down in the canyon here on friday night.. really strange place for lightning to strike.. next day there was smoke coming from under the tree.. neighbor called me, I went with a rake and cold-trailed around the tree, then called wildfire services, they came and put it out completely

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That makes sense to me. Lightning zapped this electric box last year and a couple months later killed one of my fave first calf heifers a little over a half mile away, maybe 20 yards to the east. There was a large pasture fire, they're saying from lightning, about 3 months ago 3 miles south (neighbor lost 30 bales of alfalfa stored in that pasture).
 
I fear lightning. Kills a lot of cattle around here. Several years ago - more than 25. My brother lost I think 12 head in one strike. It can be a real threat to small producers.
 
TCRanch":1lfm7jcu said:
That makes sense to me. Lightning zapped this electric box last year and a couple months later killed one of my fave first calf heifers a little over a half mile away, maybe 20 yards to the east. There was a large pasture fire, they're saying from lightning, about 3 months ago 3 miles south (neighbor lost 30 bales of alfalfa stored in that pasture).

If you plotted these strikes are they in a fairly linear pattern? This is what the guy was telling me that it would be somehow in a line due to some type charge in the earth.

In my situation it struck a brand new deep 10" deep well on the south end of the property and fried it. The next year it struck and killed about five cows about a quarter mile north of the well and this year it hit this one cow standing in the middle of the field only 150 yards from where the five were killed a few years ago. If this phenomina is true about lightning it should be off the property in a year or so and the neighbors will have to deal with it.
 
My house is up on a fairly high hill. I just figured my occasional strikes were do to location. The light pole is grounded and it gets hit regularly. Blew out a pole transformer once and we found discs for 100 yards.

My well is 300 plus feet and a perfect ground. It too has been zapped a couple of times.

The charge is looking to go to ground. If you have good grounding sources, its a lightening magnet.

I have considered a 40 foot flag pole with having copper wire in the core, tied to the well casing. Maybe it will protect my house etc. But there are people who tell me this will only encourage strikes.
 
It also depends on the severity of the strike. Not all strikes are equally charged. Some of very light and others pack a wallup.
 
Jogeephus":3rbhr8tg said:
TCRanch":3rbhr8tg said:
That makes sense to me. Lightning zapped this electric box last year and a couple months later killed one of my fave first calf heifers a little over a half mile away, maybe 20 yards to the east. There was a large pasture fire, they're saying from lightning, about 3 months ago 3 miles south (neighbor lost 30 bales of alfalfa stored in that pasture).

If you plotted these strikes are they in a fairly linear pattern? This is what the guy was telling me that it would be somehow in a line due to some type charge in the earth.

In my situation it struck a brand new deep 10" deep well on the south end of the property and fried it. The next year it struck and killed about five cows about a quarter mile north of the well and this year it hit this one cow standing in the middle of the field only 150 yards from where the five were killed a few years ago. If this phenomina is true about lightning it should be off the property in a year or so and the neighbors will have to deal with it.
Pretty much. The electric pole/box is in a ditch next to the road, my heifer was in the west central pasture about 20 yards from the road (maybe it struck the fence & traveled?). Not sure where it hit in our neighbors pasture but as the crow flies their house is almost exactly 3 miles south of ours, their pasture is to the west of their house & would be linear with the road except the road doesn't go through/ends at the end of our property.
 
backhoeboogie":1yny00qt said:
My house is up on a fairly high hill. I just figured my occasional strikes were do to location. The light pole is grounded and it gets hit regularly. Blew out a pole transformer once and we found discs for 100 yards.

My well is 300 plus feet and a perfect ground. It too has been zapped a couple of times.

The charge is looking to go to ground. If you have good grounding sources, its a lightening magnet.

I have considered a 40 foot flag pole with having copper wire in the core, tied to the well casing. Maybe it will protect my house etc. But there are people who tell me this will only encourage strikes.

I always figured hills would get hit first being its seeking the quickest shortest ground. Here, we are flat so elevation wouldn't have much to do with it and don't know if what I was told has anything to do with it or not but I have heard lightning starts from the ground so it does make a little sense but I'm not sold on it. Just wondering.
 
TC, that's interesting. Sort of bears out what this guy was saying. He was a tree surgeon and he was working in a yard and said next year he'd most likely be a few blocks over as he had already cut some trees down in the other direction and he claimed the strikes would follow a path. Don't know. Interesting observation at any rate.
 
I think what jogephus is asking about is 'if and how far the frequent strikes move in a straight line over time'.
For instance, if you had a strike on the extreme East side of your property and had one every year afterward, did the strikes all occur on the East side or did they hit in a progressively steady movement Westward? (compass directions just an example..they could just as easily moved farther East or any other direction, as long as it showed as a steady movement in the same direction.

Not been my experience here Jo. I've had the same pine tree hit multiple times over the years and very few (if any) actual strikes anywhere else.
Oddly enough, tho my fairly tall 2 story house is out in the middle of an open pasture and I have a 35' flagpole in the backyard, neither have ever been hit.
(GB looks for wood to knock on...there's a T-storm building right now) )
 
backhoeboogie":2wszs2sj said:
My house is up on a fairly high hill. I just figured my occasional strikes were do to location. The light pole is grounded and it gets hit regularly. Blew out a pole transformer once and we found discs for 100 yards.

My well is 300 plus feet and a perfect ground. It too has been zapped a couple of times.

The charge is looking to go to ground. If you have good grounding sources, its a lightening magnet.

I have considered a 40 foot flag pole with having copper wire in the core, tied to the well casing. Maybe it will protect my house etc. But there are people who tell me this will only encourage strikes.

If it's going to strike in the area, it might as well be to a flagpole rather than the house or anything else.
 
backhoeboogie":32a6g17v said:
My well is 300 plus feet and a perfect ground. It too has been zapped a couple of times.

The charge is looking to go to ground. If you have good grounding sources, its a lightening magnet.
And considering that the electron imbalances work from both directions (a positive streamer comes up from the ground before the strike of negatively charged electrons occurs..only a very small % of lightening is a + charged strike..about 5%) it makes some sense that a well grounded object would be a target.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmP6ta8J21c
 
greybeard":ltfqd1m5 said:
it makes some sense that a well grounded object would be a target.

Could that explain why, so often during a thunderstorm over our place, there's a snap & pop coming from under the kitchen sink? (keep in mind, that part of the area under the kitchen sink is dirt under plywood & the original well for the place, a 50' deep well)
 
Jogeephus":exdqvqs4 said:
TC, that's interesting. Sort of bears out what this guy was saying. He was a tree surgeon and he was working in a yard and said next year he'd most likely be a few blocks over as he had already cut some trees down in the other direction and he claimed the strikes would follow a path. Don't know. Interesting observation at any rate.
Wonder what his theory is on tornadoes. We've been hit twice at the barnyard, not .25 mile from the house. It's in a low area with woods & a steep incline on one side, Bermuda field (formerly alfalfa) on another & 2 creeks that join on the 3rd side (area is triangular).
 
TCRanch":12s2nzsy said:
Jogeephus":12s2nzsy said:
TC, that's interesting. Sort of bears out what this guy was saying. He was a tree surgeon and he was working in a yard and said next year he'd most likely be a few blocks over as he had already cut some trees down in the other direction and he claimed the strikes would follow a path. Don't know. Interesting observation at any rate.
Wonder what his theory is on tornadoes. We've been hit twice at the barnyard, not .25 mile from the house. It's in a low area with woods & a steep incline on one side, Bermuda field (formerly alfalfa) on another & 2 creeks that join on the 3rd side (area is triangular).

Doubt he has one other than they are a boom for business. Similar to hurricanes. He was just noting what he'd seen with lightning strikes moving through an area in a directional manner as if the ground in the earth would move. I did see a tree get struck in the neighbors yard the next year just as he predicted. Of course all this could be completely random and you just take notice of the things that happen in and around you.
 

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