Lightening strikes

jon f mn

Well-known Member
Had a thunderstorm pass through last night. Lightening struck something close enough to knock pictures off the wall and knock stuff down in the barn. I keep a couple flashlights on a window sill near the door of the barn and both were on the floor this morning. Also knocked down all the white wash that was flaking, the floor was covered with that. Didn't see any trees down or any damage otherwise. Had to leave before light so I'll get a better look this evening when I get home. Ever had anything like that happen before? Was a first for me.
 
Scary. Had my well pump control box fried once. Tech said the well casing more then likely grounded a lightning strike. Thankfully it didnt burn out the pump.

Vito
 
While driving to work, lightening struck the ground in a field less than 100 yards from me. It danced around for a moment, as if it was trying to find or dig a hole in the ground.
 
We had lightning strike quite close one time that cracked the foundation of the building it struck next to. Left a 3-foot hole in the ground. Microwave and coffee maker were toast. Each on its own circuit. We had 2 VCRs connected to the same outlet. One was fried, the other was OK. I've seen lightning in the immediate aftermath of a thunderstorm that came 'out of the blue'. We were always told not to fly any closer than 20 miles from a thunderstorm. Thunderstorms have very high-velocity updrafts and downdrafts. Which make for some interesting occurrences.
 
My brother an I were doing some wiring in the basement one day when a bolt of lightning hit a big tree about 40 feet from the house. Split the tree in two. We left the wiring job for another day! Another time, same house, a lightning strike knocked the cover of the phone receptacle clear across the living room. Probably good thing we weren't on the phone at the time.
 
When I was a youngin (about 1970 ), lightening appeared to travel into our farm house on the phone wire
big bang and the phone gave a funny ring.
Then there was a very light haze of smoke in the house. Only damage was it had blown the phone junction block off the floor joist in the basement. The other thing I remember about that day, when mother thought there may be fire the first possesin she gathered up was her black persian lamb fur coat.
About 1999 I was at a coworkers cottage, it started to rain so we said better head inside instead of standing around trees.
I was last one in the door and as I stopped to close umbrella lightening hit a tree about 200 ft across the creek. One heck of a bang, approx 75 ft 2.5 dia pine was turned into a 20 ft spire. A piece of the exploded trunk came across creek about 150 ft.
 
In 1980 I was walking a 40 crawler across the field,I was watching the black sky moving in.I saw one bolt of lightning, hit the switch and bailed off.A couple days later I walked back out to get it and from 100 feet away things didn't look right.Black stains all over it,and the stack was split wide open.The battery had blown up also.There was an apple tree about 10 feet from the machine and it had a couple of limbs sheared off it too.We guessed it took a direct hit.
 
When you hear the thunder, at the same time you see the flash, its pretty close. Otherwise you experience the time delay of the thunder due to the slower speed of sound.
Had lightning strick a tree one time about 50 yards away from me. I was outside at the time. It was very loud, and very bright.
It's very odd about the damage lightning may do. One strike may completely demolish something, and the next might do very little damage at all. I think alot of it has to do with how lightning finds its ground. And if the object it hits is its ground, it'll demolish it. And if the object it hits, is just a guide to a better ground, it does a lot less damage.
 
The utility pole in our yard was struck by lightning in 2016. Blew the transformer on the pole, and sent a power surge into the barn. The surge cause several cows to abort their calves, many cows were knocked off of their feet, my son was in the barn and got shocked, later all of the fillings in his teeth fell out and had to be replaced. The vacuum pump motor and stable cleaner motors were burn out, as was the electronic Milker pulsation equipment. The biggest loss came over the next 6 months, when older cows had their calves, they died within in ten days post calving, their hearts were damaged from the shock. No cows died the day of the storm, and the damages were right about the deductible on my insurance, so no claim. Fortunately my son has had no long lasting effects.
 
Had a strike to our house a couple of years ago. Was a pink flash inside the house and boom right now. Knocked out the computer, tv, microwave and some other misc. items. I thought that was close till I went out in the attached garage and saw wood chips on my pickup hood and roof. Looked up where it came from and you could see the 5 ply plywood looked like it had been hit with a sledge hammer. Checked the roof out and it had hit at the peak where a valley started. There was metal flashing under the shingles that looked chard.
 
(quoted from post at 09:23:51 09/17/21) The utility pole in our yard was struck by lightning in 2016. Blew the transformer on the pole, and sent a power surge into the barn. The surge cause several cows to abort their calves, many cows were knocked off of their feet, my son was in the barn and got shocked, later all of the fillings in his teeth fell out and had to be replaced. The vacuum pump motor and stable cleaner motors were burn out, as was the electronic Milker pulsation equipment. The biggest loss came over the next 6 months, when older cows had their calves, they died within in ten days post calving, their hearts were damaged from the shock. No cows died the day of the storm, and the damages were right about the deductible on my insurance, so no claim. Fortunately my son has had no long lasting effects.
our years ago, my son, his little girl & myself were sitting inside with door open, watching the rain storm. Out the door is patio with very tall sycamore trees on left & right. Lightening struck one that is 12 feet from the door, traveled down tree into roots, up under patio & blew chunks of concrete all over. Lucky for us the screen door was closed. Nobody wet themselves, but it was an experience never to be forgotten. Tree wasn't so fortunate as it died. Yes, the light & boom were simultaneous......sound covers 12 feet faster than a human can perceive.
 
(quoted from post at 07:39:26 09/17/21) We had lightning strike quite close one time that cracked the foundation of the building it struck next to. Left a 3-foot hole in the ground. Microwave and coffee maker were toast. Each on its own circuit. We had 2 VCRs connected to the same outlet. One was fried, the other was OK. I've seen lightning in the immediate aftermath of a thunderstorm that came 'out of the blue'. We were always told not to fly any closer than 20 miles from a thunderstorm. Thunderstorms have very high-velocity updrafts and downdrafts. Which make for some interesting occurrences.

Bill for hot-air balloons our general rule is 100 miles away. Been multiple incidents over the years of of balloons hit with sudden wind gusts/shears from downdraft outflows from thunderstorms from far away.

Edit to add: Not long after I was born in the late 60's, our farm house was hit by lightning on the TV antenna pole on the south side of the house. About six inches above the ground there is split in the antenna pipe pole where it jumped out, through the concrete foundation (blowing a hole through it), onto the the furnance duct work where it traveled to the other side of the house and jumped to the telephone and burnt it out. It was a poured foundation but I think Dad had to chisel our for two concrete blocks he used to repair it. About 10 years later we got hit again, not sure if it was a direct strike but it came down the TV antenna wire and blew up the UHF/VHF splitter on the back of the TV but didn't damage the TV. We had all just gone to bed and got up to check on things. Luckily we did as there was a small fire on carpet behind the TV from splitter being burnt up.

This post was edited by Skyhighballoon(MO) on 09/17/2021 at 07:02 am.
 
around 2000 lightning ran into our house, took out the microwave, television, water heater and the computer. it hit quite a ways from the house and was seen by a neighbor. He said in hit on a ridge behind our house , jumped to two other ridges. also burned into some wiring and our electric service box had to be replaced. burned the paper backing off some insulation in the unfinished basement. Just watched over I guess. In the 50's Dad had a large hickory tree struck and nine sheep were killed. Two were mine. the tree never had nuts again.
 
Saw major damage to a house once. Lightning hit a cherry tree about 75 feet from house, tree exploded, piece about 4x8x8 went over cars parked in the driveway hit the house with siding damage and sheetrock nails popped inside. After the tree it hit the well under the tree, followed wire into house, burned up breakers in panel and went out to telephone ground. All the outlets in the kitchen were burned also.
Different time. A young lady was struck and killed in her organic garden. We all saw the lightning, I was about five miles away. Only bolt of lightning even close, all the rest were a long ways off. So don't think you are safe if it not close.
 
Around 20 years ago the power company was replacing a tower along a high voltage line. I saw the top piece after it came down. It had burn marks from the times lightning had struck it the many years prior to being taken down.
 
When I was 8 or 9 my sister brother and I got off the school bus in a downpour. We ran home and sis called mom to check in, I was walking past the furnace room, all of a sudden sis screamed (screech on the phone)) an all I saw was blue out of the picture window.
The furnace door blew open and knocked me down.

Toasted everything that was plugged in, furnace, stove, alarm clocks, yes even the toaster.

Found out later a line crew witnessed a 6 foot ball of fire travelling down the power lines at about 20mph, it turned and went up to our house, blew up the transformer in the yard and surrounded the house with a blue flame. They assumed no one was home and didn't stop.

When thier superiors found the didn't stop and there were 3 children in the house, to avoid litigation they replaced everything,
yup, even the toaster.
 
Back in 81 i was still trucking and i stopped by a friends oil filed service company to see if i could borrow a dozer for the weekend , i had parked my semi out in the yard next to a couple of his that were still in the yard , he and i were standing talking in the one service bay door way and saw this storm coming fast , rain picked up and started to blow in the shop so he closed the door and were still standing there looking out the winder when a bolt of lighting came down and flat nailed the top back left corner of my coal bucket it moved the empty trailer like four feet to the right took out everything electrical blew all 18 tires . This happened again in 83 just before i got out of trucking while it was setting where i parked the truck at a friends place. hit the wsame place top left next to the tail gate and once again blew a hole thru 1/2 aluim plate . My fiends wife saw it hit and called telling me i needed to rush down and check the truck , i asked her if she saw smoke and she looked and said NO , i told her if she saw smoke just wait till ya see flames then give it 20 min.s to get going really good before she call the fire dept.
 
Some 20 years ago, I got a call from one of my evening class students to tell me that she was going to miss class. it seems that, during a storm, most of the cattle bunched up under a tree, and the tree was struck. Killed 21 head. She and her husband collected all the family,t heir friends, and the neighbors to try to cut up and save some of the meat before it went bad, and so she couldn't make class. I told her to save me a good steak.
 
Must have been the remnants of the one that came over my head a couple of nights ago. Had just got to sleep and was woke up by thunder. Looked out the window and it looked like I was in a big arc welder. Lightening bolts couldn't have been more than fifty feet away in the back yard, I was afraid to get up and look. One after another for about twenty minutes and then it moved on east. Three more come thru about an hour apart. Thought for sure one was going to hit the trailer house, but haven't found any damage so far. Closest I have ever been to lightening.
 
I had some very odd damage from lightning in my garage. In the mid 90's we had a thunderstorm,not very severe,but I did hear a couple of crashes around me.The next day when I went into my garage I found the radio was fried,the old dial phone on the wall was fried,and an old clock radio was gone.When I went to use my fairly new wire feed welder the wire speed was one speed only,wide open.The thing with that was it was unplugged.My concrete in that building is poured directly on ledge,and I left it unplugged for that very reason.It turned out to be the printed circuit board,and the tech told me it was lightning.I told him it was unplugged,but he said no matter,all the cables and cord acted as antennas for all that magnetism bouncing around in the room.It also fried the big,expensive surge arrestor I had put in.The maker gave me a new one,and said sometimes mother nature is stronger than anything they make.My dad built a house out front in 1963 and told me that lightning would always be a problem here because the house was built on that ledge.Lots of water in that ledge and it was always thought to be a lightning magnet.
 
Back in the 70's we were making hay when a cloud burst sprang up. We had a wagon load of small bales, and a big tarp that we threw over the wagon. We were taking shelter under the wagon, it was raining so fast that there was water standing on the ground. It was a small field with big trees around it. so we figured that was a good a place as any to shelter, as the trucks were a long way off. I was laying on the wagon coupling pole to stay out of the water, with only my hands on the ground to keep from rolling off the pole, when lightening hit nearby. I could feel the electricity flowing through my hands, was probably not more than a second but it seemed like it lasted forever. One of the guys slumped over, I thought he was dead, but we quickly revived him and he was ok. Other two guys got shocked but apparently not as bad. I was not hurt or burned at all, but after a few hours, I got very sick to my stomach. Fortunately no lasting effects for any of us.
 
I hope you dont have any serious damage. When I was a kid the chimney on my parents house was hit directly by lightning. It made quite an explosion sound, blew up the top 3 or 4 chimney blocks and flue, turned them into gravel and made a clean break with no damage to the rest of the chimney. It followed the chimney and jumped to the water pipe for the shower and apparently went to ground through the water pipes. It blew a lot of the stuff out of the bathroom closet onto the floor, No damage to any electric appliances or anything else in the house. I can still remember watching that storm come through , and remember my dad saying that is why we never had a roof mounted TV antenna, he felt they would draw lightning.
 
I can remember getting up after a thunderstorm and finding the phone line fuse blown all over the front hall At my own place one of my century oaks got hit. We thought we had a saw log but the wood was all broken up inside the log
 
Came home one morning at about 2am from a family trip to Italy to find 'something' scattered all over the front porch. One of those big full width of the house + wrap around one side type. Just covered with stuff.

When the sun came up we found that a huge tree near the curb had been struck. this was an elm that had somehow survived the Dutch Elm disease and was well over 3ft in diameter. The stuff on the porch was bits of bark, all of the bark in a strip nearly 2ft wide was just gone. The trunk and major limbs were broken end to end, but still attached and standing. My understanding of the damage is that is caused by the water in the wood instantly flashing to steam in the ground path of the strike.
 
Mom saw a ball of electricity roll out from under the clothes dryer after lightning hit. I have always wondered if it was static charged lint or actual electrons. If you want some entertainment get on You Tube and type in lightning. You will have a new respect for lightning after you see some of the videos. I know I do.
 
You were lucky. I read an article that you can die from lightning without being struck. If your heart is a certain part of it's rhythm the charge from a nearby strike can stop it.
 
Back in the 1940's my dad was repairing a home that had been struck by lightning. It was knob and tube wireing, one wire looked alright but tested open.Stripping the wire they found little copper BBs in the insulation, now that is a lot of heat to do that. Also says a lot for the old knob and tube wireing system. joe
 
I've seen those balls twice in my life.Both were on the ridges of metal roofs after a close lightning strike.One went along the
ridge of my dads neighbors house,and one was on the roof of a long shed I keep a couple of Model A's in.Kind of
blue/white/orange,and noisy.Kind of crackely.I was told they were triggered by the lightning,but were made up of ozone,particles of
solids,and static electricity.I remember reading in school stories of those balls dancing on the backs and horns of cattle herds.I
really don't know how true those stories were.
 
this is true. Lost a very well liked and respected young man in our neighborhood a few years back. He and his wife had went to bed fine and he never woke. Come to find out he had been doing some wiring in his new polebarn 3 days before and got a sm. poke. Mentioned to wife cause kids heard him say a cuss word and they didnt do that at their house. Autopsy showed that when he recieved the shock it throwed his heart into a quivering like state and when he went to bed the heart quit quivering and he passed.
 
I saw a lightning strike about 100' in front of me once. Didn't feel a thing but hope I never see another. Looked like something from science fiction, like a 24 diameter phaser blast from a star ship. Stayed on the ground a couple seconds.
 
maybe 3 years ago lighting hit my electric fence followed fence to hog house to fencer blew that off of wall went up electric
line to barn took out circuit board followed line to house took out tv bunch circuit breakers in basement freezer in laundry room. I called fire department I had several firemen here for a couple of hours until the were sure nothing else was going to happen.
Tall Kid went to basement and said Dad I think we need to call 911. I was on main trying to decide what was going to work while Tall Kid was trying breakers he came upstairs and said you need to go to basement something smells hot.
 
I remember as a kid learning about how lightning makes your hair stand up, never thought in a million years I'd experience it.
One lazy summer afternoon, I had found a lawn Jart, (those things you toss in the air and apparently try to land on or within a target) So, while tossing this thing about and learning how it works, my hair stood up. I remembered to hit the deck. Just across the lane, from the paddock where I was, same lane I live on now, it struck, sound was instant. There was a split second where I heard this ZZZZZZ....TTTTT, then the flash and noise. Still hard to believe, but for some reason throughout the years i have seen many very close strikes, some of which I cannot figure out did not cause a fire. One struck our huge old victorian house right smack in the middle, lit the place up, I saw it and you could not tell where it hit !! Even the well pump still worked that we were still using.

Just recently while coming home from work, one storm amongst many that we have had, it was striking frequently and literally both sides of the highway on both sides. The flash arc was unreal. We've had nothing but heat and high humidity followed by daily storms that do not relieve the humidity like they usually do. The humidity lately is just like the tropical rain forests, and places I have been close to the equator. I wonder if it is just this year or will be like that in the future, sure makes for lots of lightning when the storms roll in and those charges from the ground and sky meet.
 
When I was probably 10 years old heard where a guy was killed by lighting putting up hay south of town. Twenty years later when I bought my farm this guy's brother lived across the road from us. The neighbor said his brother, his dad, his uncle and him were putting up hay on a hot summer day. His brother was up on the hay stack stacking it when a cloud started to form. The only one in the sky. It just kept getting bigger and bigger. All of a sudden a bolt of lighting struck his brother and they was all on the ground and seen it happen. Said it blew both his shoes off and his wrist watch just about burnt his arm off. Then the cloud went away and not a cloud in the sky. The neighbor even showed me where the hay stack was at the time.
 
Back in the 60's a neighbor's barn burned down from a lightning strike. Another neighbor and his brother saw the strike, he said there was no noise just a lightning bolt and pretty soon the barn was on fire.
 
Hi i have a internationale 885 1987 4wd and when i push with the bucket with de 4wd actived the front weel force a little bit but dont spin and the too rear tire spin is that normal?
 

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