whats the closest lightning has been to you?

[HailHunter]

I was about twelve years old, and it had been raining. My dad and I were out in the garage watching it rain, and had not heard it thunder in a while (though it had not be the good window of 30 minutes that you're supposed to.) As I was sitting on the concrete playing with my sidewalk chalk, a bolt of lightning hit in our driveway. I did not see the bolt itself but we saw the spot where it hit, and it was close enough that we heard the sizzling crackle from the bolt. It was very interesting that the thunder, while loud and overpower took about a second or so to catch up with the bolt. I had always been under the impression that the thunder was instantaneous with the lighting when you were at "ground zero" so to speak.

 

[GvlSkywarnNCS]

New here so I guess I'll share my tales
9 years old and walking with a friend from his house to mine on a street lined with very old Oak trees. Cloudy with rain imminent and some thunder. We'd just crossed the street and walked maybe 30 ft when there was a hit on the tree where we'd just crossed from- say 50 ft away. Instant blinding flash and huge boom together like a bomb. We felt the surge of electricity bigtime but were unhurt. We turned in time to see the lowest limb fall off the tree; it was about 2 ft in diameter. Next I was 11 and sitting in a wooden chair on the porch with my bare feet propped up on the metal railing(poor southern kids did that in the summer around here)as thunderstorms closed in. I got a good zap when there was a strike somewhere behind the house. If it had been a metal chair-who knows?

Working as a carpenter in 2 story wood framed apartments when a storm blows in so the crew heads for the one story clubhouse to wait it out. The slab floor was wet so I got on top of a semi-dry wooden pallet when a unit in back 150 fr away took a hit. Every metal tool in my toolbelt sent a shock into me- I almost peed myself from the jolt across my bladder. I've never dropped my tools as fast as that since! Later we traced the strike path from a metal roof truss plate down the rafter chord, down a windbrace chord to an interior wall, down to the floor joist and down the wall underneath, across to a corner post then down into the concrete slab. The burn line was 1/2 in wide but almost no depth though it melted half the metal plate where it entered. And this was a dry building with dry wood!

Also two near-hits when not at home. One in 92 when a tree beside the house was hit- the burn stopped where it jumped over into the house utility feed. Took half the electrical appliances on that side of the house out. Next in 94 a nearby hit damaged 3 radios which I should have disconnected from the antennas before leaving home. One antenna was an ungrounded wire dipole, the other two had the coax shield grounded at the base of the mast into a single 8ft rod with cheap gap-type 'lightening arrestors' inline- the current went in the ungrounded center conductor on those.

If you're near enough to that big old spark it will get your attention like nothing else can