NOLS Lightning

Copyright © 2014 by the National Outdoor Leadership School

Published by

STACKPOLE BOOKS

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Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

www.stackpolebooks.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FIRST EDITION

Cover design by Caroline Stover

Cover photo by Ken Langford

The print edition of this title was manufactured to FSC standards using paper from responsible sources

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gookin, John.

NOLS lightning / John Gookin with Scott Morris. — First edition.

pages cm — (NOLS library)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8117-1364-1 (alk. paper)

eISBN 978-0-8117-5934-2

1. Lightning. I. Morris, Scott. II. National Outdoor Leadership School

(U.S.) III. Title. IV. Title: National Outdoor Leadership School lightning.

QC966.G66 2014

551.56’32—dc23

2014003238

Acknowledgments

Backcountry Lightning Risk Management Brochure

Introduction

Chapter 1. Frontcountry Lightning Precautions

Chapter 2. Backcountry Lightning Precautions

Adapting to Local Weather Patterns

Finding Safer Terrain

Avoiding Tall Trees and Long Conductors

Using the Lightning Position

Chapter 3. Other Thunderstorm Hazards

Flash Floods

Hail

Winds

Tornados

Fire

Chapter 4. Lightning Weather

The Sun Drives Weather

Cloud Formation

Weather Fronts

Orographic Lifting

The Thunderstorm

Forecasting

Nowcasting

Chapter 5. Lightning Physics

Static Electricity

Leaders

Strike Patterns

How Lightning Causes Injury

Chapter 6. Lightning Strike Distribution

Regional Lightning Density

Lightning around Trees

Lightning around Man-made Objects

Chapter 7. Lightning Medicine

Types of Lightning Injuries

First Aid for Lightning Strike Victims

Chapter 8. Lightning Safety in Special Circumstances

Organized Outdoor Sports

Mountains

Caves

Bodies of Water

Chapter 9. Macro-level Risk Management Strategies

Backcountry Lightning Risk Management Strategies

Record-keeping

Chapter 10. Personal Judgment and Group Decision-making

Personal Judgment

Expertise Development

Heuristics

Stress versus Performance

Group Decision-making

Collective Intelligence

Collective Folly

Chapter 11. Lightning Case Studies

Chapter 12. Conclusion

2013 Lightning Fatality Statistics and Demographics

Resources for Further Learning

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Lightning is a powerful and dangerous natural phenomenon that can present a significant risk to people—especially anyone outdoors. The information and practices described in this book explain the hazard of lightning and provide practices for managing the risk associated with it, but this information can only help reduce your risk of being injured or killed by lightning. There is no safe place outside when a thunderstorm is in the area, only places that are less likely to be struck than others. The guidelines in this book should be treated as best advice from experts in the field, rather than scientific facts. Developing the foresight to anticipate potentially hazardous lightning storms can be the most effective protection against injury or death.

Thank you to Leon Byerley, Mary Ann Cooper, Ron Holle, Phil Krider, Bill Roeder, and Martin Uman, who have been helping to advance the topic of backcountry lightning risk management since we started collaborating in 1999. I especially appreciate their patience as they worked with someone new to their field. I also appreciate how hard it was for some of them to set aside the easy options of getting into buildings or cars and make hard choices among the lesser options available in the backcountry. Other lightning scientists like Ken Cummins and Vladimir Rakov have also provided valuable data and insights into this project over the years. Indeed, the entire lightning science community that assembles at Vaisala’s International Lightning Meteorology Conference has been extremely helpful, both by advancing this field and by collaborating on projects in such a thoughtful and congenial way.

The National Weather Service has been very enjoyable to work with as well. Local meteorologist Chris Jones helped inspire the lightning brochure project in 2010, leading to the NWS joining this project at the national level. John Jensenius, the NWS lightning guru, has had sage advice and his summaries of U.S. lightning statistics are invaluable. Steve Hodanish has been extremely helpful with his careful documentation of case studies that add so much practical knowledge to our understanding of lightning effects. Donna Franklin developed and manages the NWS Lightning Safety Team, which has been a valuable group of experts to consult with on our routine conference calls.

Thank you to the editorial teams at NOLS and Stackpole Books who have helped turn the technical material into a book in the language and culture that makes it readable by the recreationists who can use this advice. Adam Swisher has been a great editor and project manager: I appreciate his focus on education and his integrity as he sculpted the language without marring the content. Thank you to Drew Leemon and Tod Schimelpfenig for adding their wisdom to the risk management and first aid aspects.

—John Gookin

The Backcountry Lightning Risk Management brochure, co-produced by NOLS and the National Weather Service in 2012, is a handy and lightweight companion to this guide. The brochure, along with this book, is based on a paper by the same name delivered by the author, John Gookin, at the 2010 International Lightning Meteorology Conference (ILMC). Brochures are available in bundles from the NOLS online store (www.nols.edu). The paper is available online at both the NOLS lightning website (www.nols.edu/lightning) and the ILMC proceedings website.

You are camped out in the wilderness, attending a baseball game, or outside in your yard when dark, foreboding clouds begin to spill over the horizon. A low rumble of thunder confirms your fears—a thunderstorm is approaching, and with it comes the risk of being struck by lightning. All thunderstorms produce lightning, and although the swift flash of lightning is one of nature’s most sublime phenomena, highlighting the magnificent beauty of the natural world, it means danger for those in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lightning strikes the ground about one hundred times every second across the earth. Annually in the United States, lightning causes an estimated $5 billion in damage, ignites about ten thousand fires, kills dozens of people, and injures hundreds.

Since our species’ earliest musings on our own existence, people have pondered the meaning of lightning. For thousands of years, such an elemental force was assumed to be a manifestation of the divine. Later, as scientific inquiry advanced during the Enlightenment, lightning was thought to be liquid fire—a belief held until Benjamin Franklin and others showed that it behaves essentially the same as static electricity.

Many cultural belief systems have included a deity that represents or wields the wild power of lightning. Lightning was widely depicted in Stone Age art because it was a force to be both feared and respected. Its destructive power was often accompanied by life-giving rain, and its fire, if tempered, could warm humans, cook food, and keep predators away. In his book on the history of lightning, Out of the Blue, John S. Friedman gives many examples of gods who mastered the power of this natural phenomenon. The ancient Egyptian deity Typhon threw bolts of lightning as an emblem of power. Early pagans in China worshiped Lei Tsu, who wore a halo of fire and splashed lightning down on humans by beating drums. Many Native American cultures—particularly those of the Pacific Northwest—revered the Thunderbird, a sacred creature that cast lightning bolts from its eyes.

Undoubtedly the strongest association of lightning with divine power in Western civilization comes from the Greek god Zeus, whose thunderbolt was his defining characteristic and weapon of choice. Zeus won in a power struggle with his father, Cronus, and his brothers and sisters to become the ruler of the sky and all other gods. Many are also familiar with Thor, the Norse god of thunder. The fifth day of the week, Thursday, is named after Thor.

Thunder and lightning play a prominent role in Abrahamic religious traditions as well, where they represent the omnipotence of God. In the Bible, the books of Exodus, Luke, and Matthew all reference the awesome power of lightning. It was common practice among leaders of the early Christian Church to attempt to convert pagans by destroying symbols of their lightning-wielding deities. After the symbol was destroyed, astonished onlookers would brace for the wrath of the deity. When it never materialized, many pagans would change their beliefs.

Early Mediterranean sailors who had been recently converted to Christianity still incorporated elements of superstition surrounding lightning into their belief systems. St. Elmo was considered the patron saint of Mediterranean sailors, and St. Elmo’s fire issuing from the mast of a ship was said to be a sign of divine protection. (The phenomenon is now known to be a corona discharge resulting from electricity in the atmosphere and ironically is a sign of a potential lightning strike.)

In an early attempt to explain the phenomenon scientifically, Aristotle theorized that thunder came before lightning, and that lightning itself resulted from water vapors being wrung from the cloud. Inquiry into lightning spread during the Middle Ages, but as the Christian Church gained influence, its leaders stifled further investigation in favor of a strict adherence to dogma and scripture. Priests regularly rang church bells during thunderstorms in an attempt to appease God and avoid His vengeance, a custom that continued until the end of the nineteenth century. In Church doctrine, lightning began to take on an unholy nature, in part because it tended to strike church bell towers and, consequently, the priests who were sent up to ring them. Interestingly, one of the earliest documented attempts at statistical analysis of strike data, done by a church bishop, showed that bell ringers were at higher risk of being struck.

There was little serious scientific inquiry into lightning until the eighteenth century, when Benjamin Franklin took up the question in earnest. Franklin was well aware of experiments happening in Europe in the 1740s with Leyden jars, small machines that stored static electricity from glass or sulfur spheres rubbed against leather pads. A common parlor trick of the day involved a gentleman scientist making sparks jump from the jar to his hand. Franklin applied this understanding of static electricity to electrical storms, first laying out his theory in a letter in 1749. He suggested that water vapor in clouds became electrically charged, prompting a separation of the positive and negative charges. He wrote, As electrified clouds pass over a country, high hills and high trees, lofty towers, spires, masts of ships, chimneys, &c., as so many prominences and points, draw the electrical fire, and the whole cloud discharges there.

In one of the most famous American science experiments, Franklin flew a kite on a stormy day in June 1752. Attached to the kite was a key, and in the midst of the storm when Franklin brought his knuckle close to the key, a spark of static electricity jumped to his hand, demonstrating that lightning was not liquid fire, but rather electrical in nature. Franklin’s theory continued to gain acceptance with his invention of the lightning rod. Franklin also invented a device that warned of approaching thunderstorms by ringing a bell inside a house as electricity built up in the atmosphere.

Our understanding of lightning has come a long way since ancient times when it was believed to be a sign from the gods. Today, modern scientific techniques allow researchers to not only forecast thunderstorms with relative accuracy, but also record the vast majority of lightning strikes in the continental