Can Lightning Strike the Same Place Twice? 6 Questions Answered
Lightning can indeed strike the same place twice: the Empire State Building is hit around twenty times a year. Here we look at this and five other facts about storms that correct widespread beliefs, including one that is taught in school.
Why lightning can strike the same place twice
The saying that lightning never strikes twice fails because of geometry. As lightning comes down, tall, pointed objects send sparks upward to meet it. The first one to connect takes the discharge. That is why the same high points are struck again and again.
You don't have to be a skyscraper. Roy Sullivan, a park ranger in Virginia, survived seven lightning strikes between 1942 and 1977. He holds the Guinness World Record and is known as the human lightning rod.
The smell of wet earth: what is petrichor?
The smell of wet earth is called petrichor. The name was coined in 1964 by two Australian scientists, Isabel Bear and Richard Thomas. One of its main ingredients is geosmin, a molecule produced by soil bacteria of the genus Streptomyces.
The human nose can detect geosmin at just a few parts per trillion, the equivalent of a single drop dissolved in an Olympic swimming pool.
In 2015, two MIT researchers filmed raindrops in super slow motion. When they hit dry ground, the drops trap air bubbles that rise and burst, like in a glass of sparkling wine. This launches tiny droplets into the air that can carry that scent. That is why drizzle after several dry days smells stronger than a downpour: large, fast drops form far fewer bubbles.
How to calculate how far away lightning is
Some people count one second per kilometer between the flash and the thunder. That is a mistake: each kilometer is equivalent to about three seconds. Light arrives instantly, but sound travels at about 343 meters per second when the air is at twenty degrees. So nine seconds corresponds to three kilometers, not nine.
The US National Weather Service warns that lightning can strike up to about sixteen kilometers from a storm, even if it isn't raining where you are. Its advice is simple: if you can hear thunder, you are within striking distance.
Why a car protects you from lightning
A car does protect you, but not because of its rubber tires. The lightning has just traveled through kilometers of air, which is a far better insulator than a few centimeters of rubber.
What protects you is the car's body. The current flows through the metal shell, on the outside, and jumps to the ground without entering the passenger compartment. This is the Faraday cage effect, the same one that protects passengers on a plane. Each commercial aircraft is struck by lightning about once a year on average.
It is best to keep the windows up and your hands away from metal parts. The tires and electronics can also be damaged. A soft-top convertible does not offer this protection.
A rainbow is actually a circle
A rainbow is not an arc but a complete circle. The ground hides the bottom part. Each droplet sends light back at about 42 degrees from the shadow of your head. Only the droplets lying on the surface of an imaginary cone with its tip at your eye light up. From a plane, you can sometimes see the whole ring.
When the sun is higher than 42 degrees, there is no rainbow visible from the ground. That is why in summer rainbows appear almost only early in the morning or late in the afternoon. What's more, each person sees their own rainbow, formed by different droplets.
Are any two snowflakes alike?
Wilson Bentley, a Vermont farmer, photographed more than five thousand snowflakes starting in 1885 without finding two that were the same. A snowflake contains on the order of a quintillion water molecules, and each branch grows according to the exact temperature and humidity it encounters as it falls.
However, in 1988 Nancy Knight, of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, examined crystals collected from a plane over Wisconsin. She found two that were identical under the microscope, although they were simple hexagonal prisms without branches. Physicist Kenneth Libbrecht, of Caltech, also creates nearly identical twin snowflakes by growing them side by side in the lab.
The correct answer: simple snowflakes can be repeated; branched stars, in practice, never, because no two follow exactly the same path. Japanese scientist Ukichiro Nakaya, who made the first artificial snowflakes, reportedly called them letters sent from the sky.
Frequently asked questions
Can lightning strike the same place twice?
Yes. Tall, pointed objects attract strikes repeatedly; the Empire State Building is hit by around twenty lightning strikes a year.
How many seconds equal one kilometer of distance from a lightning strike?
About three seconds per kilometer, because sound travels at about 343 meters per second when the air is at twenty degrees.
Do rubber tires protect you from lightning in a car?
No. What protects you is the car's metal body, which carries the current along the outside to the ground thanks to the Faraday cage effect.
Is it true that no two snowflakes are alike?
Not entirely. Simple snowflakes, such as unbranched hexagonal prisms, can be repeated; branched ones, in practice, never.
Informative article written with the help of AI tools from the verified script of the video. The video is in Spanish.