[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Close Lightning Strike Question (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 7/19/2016 8:21:22 PM EDT
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A few minutes ago we had a pretty close lighting strike. There was only a fraction of a second between light and sound. Less than a half second.
So here's the deal. Our smoke detector or something in our house beeped, then the flash then the bang. WTF? What's your theory? |
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Magnetic fields cause strange behavior in electronic devices. A lightening strike is a release of a shitload of electricity, that causes a very powerful magnetic field that expands and collapses quickly, inducing voltage in all kinds of devices, this voltage is typically no trouble in properly designed circuits, but sometimes it takes odd paths to ground. |
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Short version:
Lightning is a release of electromagnetic energy from DC to way beyond daylight. Want proof? You can hear it on an AM radio (or FM radio if the strike is close enough to the receiver.) Your smoke detector suffered the effects of RFI, or radio frequency interference. |
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Quoted:
I've seen every piece of electronic equipment in a room turn on because of lightening. Majority of it being battery powered. Electricity is awesome January 1998, had unusually hot and humid weather, then a fast cold front. I was up late making some food in the smoker for my Daughters B-Day party. Rural area, high tension power lines a few hundred yards behind my house. I went out twice to check the temperature, had a few close strikes. Third time was the charm! Went out and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM, direct hit on the lines, could hardly see, or hear, made it into the house and ALL of her electronic Talking Toys were activated and would not shut off. I called it a night. |
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January 1998, had unusually hot and humid weather, then a fast cold front. I was up late making some food in the smoker for my Daughters B-Day party. Rural area, high tension power lines a few hundred yards behind my house. I went out twice to check the temperature, had a few close strikes. Third time was the charm! Went out and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM, direct hit on the lines, could hardly see, or hear, made it into the house and ALL of her electronic Talking Toys were activated and would not shut off. I called it a night. Quoted:
Quoted:
I've seen every piece of electronic equipment in a room turn on because of lightening. Majority of it being battery powered. Electricity is awesome January 1998, had unusually hot and humid weather, then a fast cold front. I was up late making some food in the smoker for my Daughters B-Day party. Rural area, high tension power lines a few hundred yards behind my house. I went out twice to check the temperature, had a few close strikes. Third time was the charm! Went out and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM, direct hit on the lines, could hardly see, or hear, made it into the house and ALL of her electronic Talking Toys were activated and would not shut off. I called it a night. 
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Quoted:
Short version: Lightning is a release of electromagnetic energy from DC to way beyond daylight. Want proof? You can hear it on an AM radio (or FM radio if the strike is close enough to the receiver.) Your smoke detector suffered the effects of RFI, or radio frequency interference. This is correct. |
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A buddy of mine clams he was 50 yards from a lightning strike & the batteries in his F350 popped & were destroyed, fact or fiction?.....I've neve known him to be a bullshitter. Vehicles nailed by lightning....even close calls will be all kinds of jacked up. We tried to fix a couple in the dealerships.....Nope Nope Nope.... Your Friend should be glad that is all that he lost. |
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Like the others said, it's a small EMP. Nearby strikes create a pulse that gets picked up by any nearby wires.
I've had ethernet ports blown on PCs that weren't even plugged in, because the cable acts like an antenna for the pulse. Not uncommon at all for a nearby strike. Right before the main strike there's a leader strike from the ground to the air, and that was likely enough to trigger your smoke detector. I've had a few strikes where I've audibly heard a descending tone of sparks, then the leader and then the main strike. |
Driving back home during a storm, my son and I saw the trailer on the semi in front of us hit by lightning. Very bright flash, even bigger boom, glowing beads of molten something rained off of the truck and landed on the highway. That was an eye opener. 
Edit, but the truck just kept going like he didn't even know he got hit. |
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Wife was recently using the computer during a thunderstorm. Wireless keyboard and wireless mouse. She got a shock from the wireless mouse when a bolt of lightning hit close by. Back in the old days of corded landline phones one of the precautions was not to use the phone during a storm. People would get knocked clear across the room if a bolt struck nearby. They also say don't shower during a storm or be touching running water or the tap. |
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I've seen every piece of electronic equipment in a room turn on because of lightening. Majority of it being battery powered. Electricity is awesome January 1998, had unusually hot and humid weather, then a fast cold front. I was up late making some food in the smoker for my Daughters B-Day party. Rural area, high tension power lines a few hundred yards behind my house. I went out twice to check the temperature, had a few close strikes. Third time was the charm! Went out and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM, direct hit on the lines, could hardly see, or hear, made it into the house and ALL of her electronic Talking Toys were activated and would not shut off. I called it a night. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/styles/full/public/image/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-1977-006-boy-doorway-lights.jpeg?itok=Q8FYK5b- That's about what it looked like, went out back door to deck, but it was white-blue. Made all my hair stand up a micro-second before it hit. |
Inductance. Our magnetometer driveway alarm goes off every time lightning strikes nearby.
 DSC_4337_SuperBolt-lzn by FredMan, on Flickr
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Quoted:
A few minutes ago we had a pretty close lighting strike. There was only a fraction of a second between light and sound. Less than a half second. So here's the deal. Our smoke detector or something in our house beeped, then the flash then the bang. WTF? What's your theory? Mine have done that before in the same scenario. No clue why, my guess is something to do with the electrical pulse etc. J- |
| A lot of house fires start with lightning here. If you hear a close one go check in the attic carefully. Sometimes your house insulation will ignite and smolder for some time if electricity surges and a bare wire is exposed . I have seen fires 5 min to 1 hr post strike reported from the home owner. If you see smoke in the attic close the door so you dont feed the fire and GTFO. |
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Several weeks ago, we had a strong storm come through. It was the most spectacular lightning show I have ever seen in my life. It literally looked like a strobe light outside, and sounded like the French beaches on D-Day for about 20 minutes.
I just walked into work (10pm), and figured I'd stand in the doorway and watch it (I love t-storms). So I was in a huge steel warehouse, standing in a metal doorway, leaning against the metal door, which was under a metal awning  I felt the hair on my entire body stand up...I suddenly got goosebumps. The badge reader on the wall next to me beeped twice in a row. The lights in the parking lot, and on the side of the building went out. About 1/2 a second later, a huge bolt of lightning struck the other side of the road...about 80-100 yds from where I was standing.
Scared the shit out of me! There's a few trees within 50yds of our house that have huge scars running down them from lightning strikes. I saw one of them happen when I was a kid. After the storm, I ran out to look at it. Sap was oozing out, and it was still smoking in a few spots. Amazing power! |
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Quoted: Driving back home during a storm, my son and I saw the trailer on the semi in front of us hit by lightning. Very bright flash, even bigger boom, glowing beads of molten something rained off of the truck and landed on the highway. That was an eye opener. Edit, but the truck just kept going like he didn't even know he got hit. |
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Quoted: Buddy was driving truck when it was hit and it fucked up everthing. Cost about 25k to fix. Quoted: Quoted: Driving back home during a storm, my son and I saw the trailer on the semi in front of us hit by lightning. Very bright flash, even bigger boom, glowing beads of molten something rained off of the truck and landed on the highway. That was an eye opener. Edit, but the truck just kept going like he didn't even know he got hit. |
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I was in Iraq for less than two weeks when I walked out of the DFAC (dining facility) after dinner during a heavy thunderstorm. Out of nowhere a super bright flash came down all around me, followed buy an incredibly loud thunderclap. I remember feeling like I was slapped really hard on the top of my head, followed by a feeling like my heart skipped a beat or something...not a good sensation. Bystanders told me afterwards that a lightning bolt struck a rod about 25 feet away from where I was walking. Once I got my wits again, I remember thinking how shitty it would have been to get sent all the way to Iraq, only to get killed by fucking lightning. But given my luck, that would have sounded about right... |
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Air ionization most likely. Before lighting strikes it sends out invisible leaders that charge the air. Quoted:
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Air ionization or an amazing coincidence Air ionization most likely. Before lighting strikes it sends out invisible leaders that charge the air. Could well be. Maybe pushed the ionization chamber on the detector over the edge for that brief second. The EMF theory is plausible also. ETA, I'm thinking that if an EMP from the strike was strong enough to induce into the tiny PCB traces of a smoke detector, then there must have been a really nasty induced voltage spike on your incoming power and in home wiring. I'd be checking all my appliances out. |
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Quoted: Several weeks ago, we had a strong storm come through. It was the most spectacular lightning show I have ever seen in my life. It literally looked like a strobe light outside, and sounded like the French beaches on D-Day for about 20 minutes. I just walked into work (10pm), and figured I'd stand in the doorway and watch it (I love t-storms). So I was in a huge steel warehouse, standing in a metal doorway, leaning against the metal door, which was under a metal awning I felt the hair on my entire body stand up...I suddenly got goosebumps. The badge reader on the wall next to me beeped twice in a row. The lights in the parking lot, and on the side of the building went out. About 1/2 a second later, a huge bolt of lightning struck the other side of the road...about 80-100 yds from where I was standing. Scared the shit out of me! There's a few trees within 50yds of our house that have huge scars running down them from lightning strikes. I saw one of them happen when I was a kid. After the storm, I ran out to look at it. Sap was oozing out, and it was still smoking in a few spots. Amazing power! You should install lightning rods on your house if you don't have them. |
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EMP
Had that happen to me a few weeks ago. Bolt came down right out side my computer room window. My monitor flashed and came back in nearly instantly and it is behind a massive APC UPS with a good battery. Nothing else went down. (Asus Rog Swift) Guess it was more sensitive. |
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A buddy of mine clams he was 50 yards from a lightning strike & the batteries in his F350 popped & were destroyed, fact or fiction?.....I've neve known him to be a bullshitter. I believe it, back in about 96 we were riding down the road and a transformer we were riding by got hit by lightning, jumped off it to the whip antenna on my hunting truck and blew both pos and neg battery cables off of the battery. I'm sure a good bit of the voltage/amperage went to ground through the power companies grounding. Can't imagine what a direct hit would feel like. |
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Quoted: Magnetic fields cause strange behavior in electronic devices. A lightening strike is a release of a shitload of electricity, that causes a very powerful magnetic field that expands and collapses quickly, inducing voltage in all kinds of devices, this voltage is typically no trouble in properly designed circuits, but sometimes it takes odd paths to ground. Like the time a strike happened across the street, and I got a mild shock from the laptop I was working on - running on battery, connected wirelessly. That was interesting. |
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A buddy of mine clams he was 50 yards from a lightning strike & the batteries in his F350 popped & were destroyed, fact or fiction?.....I've neve known him to be a bullshitter. One of my field guys F350's got hit on a job site about 2 years ago. A ton of the electronics on the truck had to be replaced, as well as the tires due to something fucky going on with the belts. I believe it. |
| Direct hit on a power pole at a house 160 feet from mine a month ago. He lost everything that had solid state/low voltage boards. It fried my Pioneer Elite receiver, freezer evaporator fan, IR safety sensors on my garage door opener and my standalone ice maker now just stops making ice randomly. Crazy. Snagged a new receiver off CL for $80. Fixed everything else but the ice maker myself for around $90 total. I'm feeling lucky. |