Best way to explain it is they tend to take the "easiest" path to ground. On Sat, Jun 4, 2016 at 6:54 AM, Michael wrote: > I was speaking with a professor from UF in gainesville and he told me that > researchers at UF had found that, contrary to popular belief, lightening > strikes rarely take the shortest path to ground. He said they found that > there are many factors including atmospheric pressure. > > On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 3:30 AM, Steve Litt > wrote: > >> On Wed, 01 Jun 2016 20:34:55 -0700 >> Brian Cluff wrote: >> >> >> > I wish I still had this CD ROM drive that I used to show off when >> > lightning came up in conversation. Most of the traces were >> > completely melted off its circuit board... and the computer that it >> > was plugged into was also plugged into a really nice surge suppressor. >> >> Supposedly Central Florida, where I live, is the lightning capital of >> the world. One day I sat on the front porch, enjoying a rainstorm, even >> after my wife told me to come inside before I get struck by lightning. >> >> Then there was one of those boom-flashes where the book and the flash >> were simultaneous, my wife came to the front door, and told me our back >> yard had been struck by lightning. Here's what I found: >> >> There was a 15 foot and rising mushroom cloud of smoke rising from an >> 18 inch hole in the ground. A few feet from the hole was the metal dog >> leash cable whose top pulley rode on a 50 foot horizontal metal cable >> stretched between two trees. Several inches of the leash that had been >> touching the ground were vaporized. >> >> Following the horizontal cable, I saw that the tree on the right had >> burn marks from where the cable was attached to midway up the tree, but >> a tree about 6 feet away had burn marks from that height to its top. >> >> The lightning had hit one tree, jumped to the tree with the horizontal >> wire, across the horizontal wire to the vertical leash, down the leash >> to blow a hole in the ground and vaporize several inches of the leash. >> Luckily, our dog hadn't been on it at the time. >> >> I found out later that my neighbor had been standing about 10 feet from >> the trees that got hit, on his own property. The electrical field had >> knocked him to the ground. >> >> The itercom system that came with our house failed. Both trees that got >> hit died a few weeks later. >> >> SteveT >> >> Steve Litt >> May 2016 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century >> http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21 >> --------------------------------------------------- >> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org >> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: >> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss >> > > > > -- > :-)~MIKE~(-: > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: > http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > -- A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. Stephen