Erik's Cloud 9

THAT'S SOME HOT STUFF

It's pretty,,, AND pretty deadly. When out on weather talks at schools and community events I'm always asked about Lightning and Lightning Safety. Well, as I always say "The best way to be safe is to be prepared". I also say "Common sense is ANYTHING but common!" So, when it comes to lightning, it's actually a matter of being prepared AND using common sense.

First of all, here's a bit of lightning trivia. Only the width of a pencil a lightning bolt can burn at 10 times hotter than the surface of the sun. That's a whopping 50-55,000 degrees fahrenheit. Lightning is nothing more than a spark - it allows the equalization of the electrical charge between the clouds and the ground. And thunder? Well, that's the sound of the air that surrounds the lightning bolt explosively heating to the extreme temperature of the lightning bolt.

Now, for safety. Lightning is a true killer. I was working in Iowas when a young boy in my area was killed by something called a "bolt from the blue". He was getting the mail at the end of a long rural driveway after morning storms had been gone for more than 15 minutes. He was still struck by lightning even though the storms were miles away. He never made it back up the driveway with the mail. As its name implies, the sky can be blue with storms either approaching or leaving an area and being up to 10 miles away. Lightning can still leave the parent storm and head miles in any direction, leaving you unsafe even though the storms are nowhere near you.

Safety around lightning is such an important issue that the National Weather Service sponsors "Lightning Safety Week" every year. It's next week and I've included a link to the safety and information page. 8 people have already been killed by lightning in 2008 after a lightning death toll of 45 in 2007.

Be Prepared: Know when the weather will turn bad in your area. Use common sense: Don't be outside or in a lightning prone area when the storms roll thru.

Erik

http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/p>