# Lightening strikes and traversing bad storms



## InnerFlame00 (Jun 4, 2015)

An action scene I'm writing for my current novel has my main characters walking to shelter with a hurricane headed towards them. One main character has weather related powers and is able to shield them from the wind, lightening, and debris. However, at one point his powers weaken and lightening hits pretty close to them. They're in the city, and walking on the road.

I'm trying to figure out how that would affect the characters. Would they be blind/deaf for a period of time? Would the electricity travel through the ground and to them if they were walking on cement? Would it knock them back? Writing this scene is really making me realize how much I don't know about lightening, and all I can find is information on what happens if lightening strikes someone directly.


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## TJ1985 (Jun 4, 2015)

Lightning is electricity, and it will travel through water, so if the pavement is wet and they are barefoot, they can get jarred pretty badly. It wouldn't be as bad as a direct hit, but it could burn the soles of the feet for sure. With shoes on, no real problems that I can see, unless it was close enough to melt the soles and then the shanks would burn the feet. If it were that close, the intense heat in the strike would burn the skin, or burn the clothing off. Lightning strikes aren't all the some, some are small, some are large. I know of a gentleman who had a near miss with a big bolt, and it gave him a mild burn on his arms and face, like a sunburn. 

It could knock them down if it were close enough, and I know from personal experience, the thunder from a too-damn-close strike is deafening. My ears rang for a week and a half after a big strike 40 feet away from me, and I had a white streak in my vision for a few hours. (Never look at a tree during a storm!) 

When it's close, I have felt the hairs on my arms stand up after. Some would say it's just fear, but I think there's a lot of charge lingering in the air. I know that's not really it, but it felt different than usual. 

I would point out one thing. Your character with the weather powers? He's got the power. If he can make lightning, maybe he can make lightning do bizarre things. A strike nearby knocks out his enemy for a while, or makes them dizzy, etc. Just a thought. Good luck with your story. I know it will be a good one because you're taking the time to research it well.


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## InnerFlame00 (Jun 5, 2015)

Thanks for the info! Yeah, I want it to be realistic because it always bugs me when something I'm reading makes me think "Wait. That doesn't make sense..."


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## Terry D (Jun 5, 2015)

Hurricanes do not usually have lightning. Lightning and thunder are the result of vertical air movement -- the rising and falling of warm and cold air which results in friction and builds the static charge. Hurricanes are the result of horizontal air flow which does not generate the same friction. There have been some instances of lightning associated with hurricanes, but it not the normal case.


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## aj47 (Jun 5, 2015)

When Craig Biggio was a kid, another kid on his team was killed by a lightning strike to a wet field.  That kid was the only one who was wearing metal cleats rather than the cheaper, rubber ones.


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## InnerFlame00 (Jun 5, 2015)

Terry D said:


> Hurricanes do not usually have lightning. Lightning and thunder are the result of vertical air movement -- the rising and falling of warm and cold air which results in friction and builds the static charge. Hurricanes are the result of horizontal air flow which does not generate the same friction. There have been some instances of lightning associated with hurricanes, but it not the normal case.



Thanks for pointing this out - I never really thought of that but of course it makes sense. In the scene I only need there to be one lightening strike, so I will be making it the only occurrence through the rest of the scene knowing this now.


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## J Anfinson (Jun 5, 2015)

This doesn't answer your question, but maybe you'll find a use for it.

It's said that lightning won't strike the same thing twice, but that's baloney. There's a tree in my yard that's been hit at least four times. Believe it or not it's still alive (barely). Every time it gets hit it produces less foliage the next year.


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## TJ1985 (Jun 6, 2015)

J Anfinson said:


> This doesn't answer your question, but maybe you'll find a use for it.
> 
> It's said that lightning won't strike the same thing twice, but that's baloney. There's a tree in my yard that's been hit at least four times. Believe it or not it's still alive (barely). Every time it gets hit it produces less foliage the next year.



To add to that, it is partially true that it doesn't hit the same place twice, which is the wording I've always heard. If it hits a millionth of an inch away from the first strike epicenter, it didn't hit the same place. Idioms are often rooted in tricky wording and hidden meaning. There's a tree in my back yard that took two strikes, and it looked ragged, and then it got hit the third time when the sap was up, the sap heated, boiled, and the tree went blooey. It hasn't been hit again, lol. 

Sorry for not knowing about hurricanes and a lack of lightning. My primary meteorological interest is tornadic activity, those come in Supercells, and lightning is a big part of that either from the sky coming down, from cloud to cloud, or when a transformer gets knocked down. When a transformer takes a hit, the lightning starts uncomfortably close to ground. True, it's not legit lightning, but it'll kill you all the same and you don't get extra credit or a nicer funeral for the real thing, lol.


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