9 Replies to “Never Wait Under A Tree In A Thunderstorm”

  1. Wow! Looks like a couple of Hutterite boys got caught out in the rain either coming or going to the field. The driver of this sprayer is lucky he wasn’t killed. It is weird that the tires didn’t blow.

  2. I worked with a guy once who had his pickup struck by lightning….twice. Throws that old wives tale out.

  3. My parents told me never to go under a tree in a thunderstorm. Whenever I was caught in a thunderstorm with my parents we headed for the nearest big spruce. When I was a kid, I used to wonder miles through the bush and got soaked in endless thunderstorms. I tried to kill myself in flooding rivers and falling off those big hip roofed barns so wondering in thunderstorms was low risk activity. After all, there was no traffic to play in.

  4. The 14ft tall sprayer is definitely the tallest object out there on the prairie. I was taught that lightening tends to strike the tallest object near its pathway. What’s a farmer to do? Lie down on the ground?

    Might I suggest they equip their sprayers with lightening rods, connected to a chain dragging on the ground? Perhaps they are already so equipped? Which is why the tires didn’t burst into flames?

    1. And sprayers are mostly metal. So you have the “tallest object out there” and it’s made of metal — almost guaranteed lightening catcher.

  5. i was standing at my front window once looking outside during a thunderstorm. Suddenly a Lightning bolt went through my front window shattered it and burned their floor in a big flash of purple.

    1. The summer I worked in Klamath Falls, OR … on a remote ranch at the end of Swan Valley … I stayed in a bunk house at the base of a heavily forested mountain. One night, the most violent thunderstorm rolled-in right over our heads. Pounding rain, wind, and lightening strikes woke me from my heavy (18yo) sleep. We sat up and listened as the flash of light and thunder clap simultaneously busted our eardrums. The lightening was striking trees all around us, and we could hear branches crack and fall. Where could we go? I consider myself fortunate that none of the trees caught fire, or dropped on our little cabin. Nature kills. We sometimes forget that when we romanticize “living in nature” … like all the fraudulent eco-global Warmists.

  6. Pay attention to the sky. If it goes green you are looking at a lot of ice up there. That creates lots of lightning and possibly hail. If you stay away from the trees you might get beaten to death by hail. Move under the trees and lightning is a threat. Move to far away an you become the tree.

    I would try to move under smaller tree. Keep your hands off the tree. A lightning bolt hitting the tree will be taking all routes to ground so any body part touching the tree will get its share of the current. As the current spreads out from the tree it will be taking all possible routes including up one leg and down the other. Keep your feet close together. Keep away from the trunk if its not hailing.

    At a golf course major tournament, some people took shelter under at tree that was hit by lightning. The guy touching the tree died. Others fell to the ground with their legs paralyzed. People were puzzled by the simple physics of the situation. The survivors likely had their feet too far apart along a radius from the tree. Standing on a root would have been a bad idea. Really bad idea to be holding hands as current will now travel up one leg through the chest and then through the the other person. That would be a good way to stop two hearts.

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