Lightning!

[tex452]

My son came back from a roping one night during a lightning storm, while he was unloading the horse, lightning struck near them, it knocked them both down, I was upset and told him he should have let the horse on the trailer.
My grandfather had an electric fence wire running over an electric wire going to his smokehouse, it rubbed through the rubber and killed a couple of cows, luckily that's all that happened.

 

[wbvs58]

The biggest risk to household electronics are cordless telephones. The charging piece where the telephone cord is plugged into also plugs into the household power. Lightening spikes travel up the phone line through the charging station and try to earth out through the neutral wire which is bonded to the earth in the switchboard. It takes out electronic equiptment also plugged into the power along the way. I know from experience, I lost my inverter when I first moved up here. I still have the char marks on the wall where the telephone cord became ash from that lightening strike where it ran down to the charging station. Even without a phone plugged in I would get multiple blue flashes coming out of my phone plug and get the smell of those old flashlight bulbs. I ended up cutting the phone line once my mobile reception became reliable here. Phone lines around here seem to be a magnet for lightening.

Ken

 

[TexasRancher]

Even tho it's extremely short duration, it is difficult to provide enough ground to handle even a typical lightning bolt.
10 gigawatts.
300 million volts.
30,000 amps.

At least 10x the energy the big high voltage powerlines carry.

Five or ten 500mcm copper cables would work....but i'd hate to be the one crimping up those lugs and drilling bolting/ grounding.....would be expensive and time consuming. I'm sure the lugs and bolting assessories would cost more than the wire cable lengths needed.

 

[50/50Farms]

Five or ten 500mcm copper cables would work....but i'd hate to be the one crimping up those lugs and drilling bolting/ grounding.....would be expensive and time consuming. I'm sure the lugs and bolting assessories would cost more than the wire cable lengths needed.

 

[greybeard]

Five or ten 500mcm copper cables would work....but i'd hate to be the one crimping up those lugs and drilling bolting/ grounding.....would be expensive and time consuming. I'm sure the lugs and bolting assessories would cost more than the wire cable lengths needed.

Probably so, tho I think they use hydraulic crimpers now.
Lots more to grounding and bonding something like a substation or tall building than just the down rods and cables. The mesh under the station/building to dissipate that much current is pretty extensive as is the above surface media used to protect workers from everyday stray voltage they may encounter just walking along. Lightning arrestors are a big part of any installation.

I have seen a helicopter get hit by 2 strikes just a few minutes apart and then heard the radio chatter from them telling us we just got hit. We barely knew it other than hair on our arms. Faraday effect protects aircraft most of the time and same for automobiles.

 

[Brute 23]

When I was on fracs if there was lighting any where in the vicinity we shut down. I was off but my opposite shift got hit right on top the crane. It fried the crane and all the electronics in the frac truck along with quite a few pump trucks. It was a big deal because they had to get more cranes in to grab the lubricator and then pick the bad crane up. When I came back there was a pile of trucks stacked on the side of the location.

Tanks would blow up fairly often. We had some bad lightning come through and there were like 4 swds burning around us. We lost 2 compressors one time. We would lose boards in our comms fairly often.

 

[TCRanch]

When I was on fracs if there was lighting any where in the vicinity we shut down. I was off but my opposite shift got hit right on top the crane. It fried the crane and all the electronics in the frac truck along with quite a few pump trucks. It was a big deal because they had to get more cranes in to grab the lubricator and then pick the bad crane up. When I came back there was a pile of trucks stacked on the side of the location.

Tanks would blow up fairly often. We had some bad lightning come through and there were like 4 swds burning around us. We lost 2 compressors one time. We would lose boards in our comms fairly often.

Second tornado that hit us, crew was working on the well in the east 80 (I think they were pulling the well for maintenance). After it was safe, we got out of the BASEMENT to check all the damage and I was doing inventory on the herd. Drove to the east 80, which is maybe .75 miles (as the crow flies) from the barnyard that had most of the damage. I'll be damned if the crew wasn't still there, comparing pics of the tornado on their cell phones. Okay, no lightning, but a freakin' tornado just went RIGHT by them and they didn't have sense enough to take shelter in the cement livestock shelter or even a ditch. Yeah, they were fine and zero damage to that area, but I'm fairly certain an OSHA manual spontaneously burst into flames.

 

[Brute 23]

Second tornado that hit us, crew was working on the well in the east 80 (I think they were pulling the well for maintenance). After it was safe, we got out of the BASEMENT to check all the damage and I was doing inventory on the herd. Drove to the east 80, which is maybe .75 miles (as the crow flies) from the barnyard that had most of the damage. I'll be damned if the crew wasn't still there, comparing pics of the tornado on their cell phones. Okay, no lightning, but a freakin' tornado just went RIGHT by them and they didn't have sense enough to take shelter in the cement livestock shelter or even a ditch. Yeah, they were fine and zero damage to that area, but I'm fairly certain an OSHA manual spontaneously burst into flames.

I can't say much. When we were out by Kermit a nasty storm developed. Our phones went crazy with tornado alerts. You could see funnel clouds dropping out the sky. We were watching with our eyes and looking at radars. It was hard to tell which way they were going. At the last minute we jumped in the trucks and hauled butt west on a highway. One of the tornados went with in a couple hundred yards of the pad and another crossed the highway between us and our office.

It was pretty wild for a bunch of boys who didn't know squat about tornadoes.

I got pinned down in a Love's bathroom in Ft Stockton, also. Two tornadoes were coming down the highway I was supposed to go north on so i stopped at the gas station. I ended up right in the crosshairs by accident. We were all huddled in the restroom and they split us at the last minute. That could have been a real chitty situation.

 

[Farm Family]

We have had some real bad electrical storms lately. I always say a little prayer because goodness just awful. Came home from work the other day and the hair on my arm felt like it was standing up. You could feel the charge in the air, if that makes sense. I did not take the long way to the house. This news story is one that stands out:

'Worst thing I've ever seen on the farm': Sask. family loses nearly 30 cattle to lightning strike

A family in southwest Saskatchewan is facing both a financial and emotional loss after 28 of their cattle were struck and killed by lightning.

regina.ctvnews.ca

 

[Named'em Tamed'em]

We lost 9 head to lightening. 4 cows and 5 calves under a tree on the creek in SW Mt.
It was a sickening sight.
They weren't all pairs...

A purebred Angus rancher who always held his bull sale the last of March would put some cows and calves on a round bale feeder the day of the sale. When he got home, lightning had struck the bale feeder and killed everything that was feeding from it. And yes, lightning in SE Montana was very rare.

Dillon area?

 

[greybeard]

I can't say much. When we were out by Kermit a nasty storm developed. Our phones went crazy with tornado alerts. You could see funnel clouds dropping out the sky. We were watching with our eyes and looking at radars. It was hard to tell which way they were going. At the last minute we jumped in the trucks and hauled butt west on a highway. One of the tornados went with in a couple hundred yards of the pad and another crossed the highway between us and our office.

It was pretty wild for a bunch of boys who didn't know squat about tornadoes.

I got pinned down in a Love's bathroom in Ft Stockton, also. Two tornadoes were coming down the highway I was supposed to go north on so i stopped at the gas station. I ended up right in the crosshairs by accident. We were all huddled in the restroom and they split us at the last minute. That could have been a real chitty situation.

I went to Kermit once when I lived out in Tom Green Cty. (yes, On purpose.)
I wanted to see the Kermit Crater/Wink Sink. (Did you do that?)
Ok, I drove 180 miles one way, to see......a hole in the ground. just a hole in the ground...

 

[Brute 23]

I went to Kermit once when I lived out in Tom Green Cty. (yes, On purpose.)
I wanted to see the Kermit Crater/Wink Sink.
Ok, I drove 180 miles one way, to see......a hole in the ground. just a hole in the ground...

Ya it's pretty anti-climactic. We had a lot of time to kill out there so we went all over looking for the attractions. It's an interesting area from a history or geological stand point... not so much much visual.

 

[faster horses]

Dillon area?

Deer Lodge.