The lightning was really scary, I tell you. I could see thick flashes of lightning very near my house and I was worried about running out to my car which was parked beside the road outside my house.
I was thinking, should I risk my life dashing out of the house and into my car? Maybe I should just cancel the appointment. Which was more important - the appointment or my life?
Guess what? I chose the appointment! Haha!
What is living without some risk taking, yes? But it must be a calculated risk, of course. How did I weigh my risk? Well, I figured the safest time to dash out to my car was right after I see a flash of lightning. Because the chances of a second lightning strike would be minimal right after the first one!
Anyway, I got myself ready. The moment a huge lightning flashed in front of my house, I made a quick dash to my car, so quick, I think I could have beaten Olympic champion Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt! Once inside the car, I quickly closed the door and heaved a sigh of relief. If you don't already know, the car is one of the safest place to be in a thunderstorm.
Maybe some of you are thinking I was over-reacting. Well, if you think so, you probably do not know the dangers of lightning. Are you aware that the probability of being struck by lightning in Malaysia is higher than winning the lottery?
But what is the probability of lightning striking the same place or same spot twice? This is, in fact my topic for today's post. Nil? Zero?
Well, if you think lightning never strikes the same place twice, think again!
It has been reported that the Empire States Building in New York gets struck by lightning on the average of 100 times a year. I wonder how many times our Petronas Twin Towers in KLCC gets struck by lightning in a year?
The video above did not really show the lightning hitting the Petronas Twin Towers in my opinion. But this video below showed the lightning really hitting the KL Tower!
Even the back of my house was struck by lightning many times in a year, and sometimes twice within minutes in the same storm!
Photo courtesy of xmwallpapers.com
Storm observers will definitely tell you it's a myth that lightning never strikes the same place twice.
So if you know a certain place has been struck by lightning before, do be cautious and try not to go there when the next storm occurs! If you want to know how to protect yourself from lightning, read one of my previous posts here.
Lightning, despite being a dangerous natural phenomenon, is really a fascinating subject. I have always love the rain, and it's not too absurd to tell you that I love lightning as well. Provided I'm in a safe place of course.
If you are avid photographer, I hope you will take some good lightning photos and send to me! You may think I'm weird, but I actually love collecting lightning photos!
Now that you know lightning can strike the same place more than once, how about lightning striking the same person twice? Is that even possible?
Did you watch the interesting movie The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett? In the movie, there was an old man who claimed that he was struck by lightning 7 times and survived to tell the tale. (Actually the movie only showed him being struck 6 times or did I miscounted? Anyone can help me here?)
I had a good laugh during the movie, but on searching about survivors of lightning strikes online, I was amazed to find that there is in fact, a person in real life who was really struck by lightning 7 times! His name is Roy Sullivan. You can read about it here.
Since we are on the subject of lightning, do you know that you can calculate how far the lightning is from you?
Here's how.
We all know that light travels much faster than sound. So expect to see the lightning first before you hear the thunder. What you do is calculate the time taken for you to hear the thunder after you see the lightning. Then divide the number of seconds by 5 to calculate the distance in miles or by 3 to calculate distance in kilometres.
For example, if you counted that it took 6 seconds between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder, then the lightning is 2 kilometres away from you.
(6 seconds divide by 3 equals 2 kilometres)
Pretty easy, isn't it? But that doesn't mean that if you calculated that the lightning is 10 kilometres away, you are safe. The reason is, lightning can strike within 16 kilometres or about 10 miles from a storm!
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