Lightening Storms in the High Desert!

[Mike Phillips]

Wow!

In the last few weeks we've had numerous lightening storms move through the Apple Valley area they can be fairly animated if you know what I mean.

Yesterday, August 6th, around 3:30pm, we had a lightening storm pass through our neighborhood!

When the lightening struck, it shook our house and set off car alarms all around our neighborhood! We think lightening may have struck between our backyard and our neighbors yard as we could see the lightening bolts reflecting off the sides of window glass adjacent to our house, not looking up, but right across from us!

Then, we lost power and cable till just about an hour ago.

If you've never been close to a lightening storm before, count your blessings... it's powerful and even kind of scary. We after the second big lightening strike, we went around the house and unplugged major electrical devices including our computers, monitors, printers, DVD players, TV's, etc.

When lightening shakes your house, you tend to wake up little and take notice!

[Superior Shine]

I am orig. from Miami Fla so I know lightening storms. Also, I was stationed in Barstow for 2 1/2 years and seen my share of desert t-storms as well.

Once in Barstow it was getting dark and I wondered if it was going to rain. Just then a super loud boom went off and a tree about 50 yards or so in front of me exploded after it was struck by lighting!!!

[rusty bumper]

Here in NC, we are second in lightning only to Florida (I think).

We get some nasty lightning here sometimes, but it's really bad down east where the land is much flatter (as you get closer to the coast).

Up here, the rolling terrain tends to mufflel the thunder too, but down in the flat lands it rolls for miles, and is very loud and can shake your windshield.

I guess since the desert is flat like Florida and eastern NC, it can be frightning experience indeed.

[gb387]

Here in Iowa we will get a nasty storm rolling through from time to time... Yes you do wake up and listen!

We had a storm earlier this summer that wiped out our entire phone system at work(amusement park), burned up one rides entire computer system (burned holes in all 5 of the motor control drives), burned up the power supply for the bumper cars (the volt meters "exploded", and burned up sensor after sensor after sensor on another ride... all with one strike! It is some powerful stuff!

[Bill D]

Here in the Daytona Beach area, lightning is quite common.It seems most intense starting in Spring. This area is home to many golf courses and I find those who insist on continuing to play in these conditions very foolish. You're quite right, count your blessings.

[RamAirV1]

Lightning

When I lived in Dayton, OH, lightning struck my neighborhood twice in one day. The first strike in the morning I didn't feel too much, but the fire department had to respond to the house that was struck. That evening was another story. Lightning struck three houses away. It blew their brick chimney apart, and started an attic fire. All the fluorescent lights in my house were glowing an eerie green. The lights were turned off at the time!

Lightning is powerful stuff, no doubt about it.

RamAirV1

[sixty7mustang22]

Originally posted by Rusty Bumper
Here in NC, we are second in lightning only to Florida (I think).

We get some nasty lightning here sometimes, but it's really bad down east where the land is much flatter (as you get closer to the coast).

Cool. Another NC guy.

Yeah, we get lightning storms all the time here in WNC. Just the other day we got a really bad one. It hailed, marble sized hail, for an hour along with the lightning and thunder. It was flashing right above my house. Talk about crazy. It was shaking the house. Fun stuff. It is kinda a common thing here. Usually it happens at night though. Here lately, it has been happining during the day.

[rusty bumper]

Originally posted by sixty7mustang22
Cool. Another NC guy.

There's a few of us here.

[BlkBear]

Re: Lightening Storms in the High Desert!

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
Wow!
If you've never been close to a lightening storm before, count your blessings... it's powerful and even kind of scary. We after the second big lightening strike, we went around the house and unplugged major electrical devices including our computers, monitors, printers, DVD players, TV's, etc.
....
....When lightening shakes your house, you tend to wake up little and take notice!

FLASH BOOM!!! Eeek is right!!

Remember Mike... to unplug EVERYTHING that is connected to your computer that has a plug, cable or wire, connected to outside services.

PHONE, NETWORK, DSL or CABLE connections. I don't know how many times a friend has gotten a computer fried, because it had a network cable, dsl/cable modem or fax/modem still plugged into the phone line or the electrical plugs.

And yuppers, it's pretty scary that you have to run around unplugging things you wanna keep. And it's really scary if you happen to get a house strike or a really really close ground strike and watch phone cords do a zip- fizz smoke and pop dance and hearing the phone ring get bright and die with a puff of smoke. You watch the phone's death and are thinking "Ooooo... Ahhhh... Pretty colors!", the smell hits you and then you're thinking "Oh crud... wonder what else is toast!!"

[rusty bumper]

I amost forgot, back in the pre-cable TV days, we had an outdoor antenna with a Channel Master control on top of the TV set. The control would allow you to turn the antenna 360* to fine tune the picture.

One day a bolt of lightning hit the antenna and ran down the cable to the control box and blew it to pieces right before our eyes!

Antennas and lightning just don't go together.

[2000]

Originally posted by Rusty Bumper


Antennas and lightning just don't go together.

no, the problem is "they do" go together...and usally with bad results.

[sixty7mustang22]

Oh yeah. I forgot something too. Never play PS2 in a lightning storm. Me and my brother were playing and a big flash of lightning hit. I could see the blue streak of electricity run up the cord to my brothers controller and it shot it out of his hands. Crazy stuff. Talk about .lol Needless to say, we haven't played any more in lightning storms. They are calling for lightning storms today.

[Acenas]

We get some pretty bad lightning storms here also. I dont know if its because we are sorrounded by water that it attracts the lightning strikes more to the island we live on.

Last year my cousin and his brother in law where hit by lightning at the beach. My cousin survived, his brother in law was burnt beyond recognition.

At our house its a common practice to unplug our computers and phones since they short if we get hit close to the home. We dont have a gounding circuit in the eletrical system wich makes it worse. We are going to update the electrical this year when we rebuild the house.

[rusty bumper]

I hear some of you talk about unpluging your devices from the wall outlets, but wouldn't a good surge protector offer protection from lightning strikes?

[sixty7mustang22]

Originally posted by Rusty Bumper
I hear some of you talk about unpluging your devices from the wall outlets, but wouldn't a good surge protector offer protection from lightning strikes?

A GOOD surge protector perhaps. We have had a few of those fry in a storm and still not protect the appliance. We haven't really had many of our appliance hit by lightning. It is a rare event. Our TV got hit once pretty good and half the screen was distorted for a week. It finally returned to normal. Lets just say Kramer looked even funnier for that week. We usually just turn most everything off (not unplug) and hope for the best. We are cheap.