Lightning Safety
On Wednesday afternoon an 18 year old woman, Shaneeka Cannon, was in Oxon Hill waiting for a bus when she was struck by a bolt of lightning. That lightning would prove to be fatal for Shaneeka.
I have always loved looking at lightning. It's one of the reasons that I became a meteorologist. The displays are awesome, but the results can be horrific. Thursday, I put together a short piece about lightning safety, as a reminder/refresher about what to do when lightning is approaching. I hope you can spare a couple of minutes and check it out, so that we don't have another family mourning their loss.
I have always loved looking at lightning. It's one of the reasons that I became a meteorologist. The displays are awesome, but the results can be horrific. Thursday, I put together a short piece about lightning safety, as a reminder/refresher about what to do when lightning is approaching. I hope you can spare a couple of minutes and check it out, so that we don't have another family mourning their loss.
posted by Howard Bernstein, 9 Weather Now at
12:07 PM
3 Comments:
I have always been fascinated by stories about lightning victims, it is a scary thing indeed.
I have a question, though. Is it save to be driving in a thunderstorm? over the last seven years, since I had several close calls with lightning myself, I have developed an extreme phobia of being on the road in thunderstorms. I often watch the radar and try to leave work when there are breaks in the storms. Sometimes I bail out and stop at a bar or something if I see dark clouds approaching. Since drive 30 miles to work and have to sit through some of the worst D.C. traffic, this is a difficult task. Am I being over paranoid?
This post has been removed by the author.
Bob T,
Driving in lightning isn't necessarilly unsafe. The rain and reduced visibility are the most dangerous things.
Lightning, as long as you are inside your car, poses little threat to you. Were the car to be hit directly, the lightning would travel arond you through the car's metal and then into the ground.
It's always possible that a tree could be hit by lightning and then the tree falls on you and you get squashed. But if you're driving 30 miles to work in DC traffic, you're taking far greater chances, in my opinion, then what lightning can do to you.
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