Originally published at: Video: See the moment a storm chaser's car was struck by lightning, and hear his commentary après-zap! | Boing Boing
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So dont go chasing tornadoes in a Prius. Cool
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As a storm lover and Prius owner, this is absolutely fascinating.
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Just imagine the views if he’d had the forethought to run a 12 AWG copper cable from the car antenna to a metal headband and then another cable from his metal underpants down through the floor to drag along the road.
It’s interesting to see some electronics blow out while others remained functional. For example, the headlights died, but the corner marker lights continued to glow. Some of his cameras failed but others didn’t.
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I was in a car which was struck by lightning, but it was nowhere near as dramatic. I was around 7, 8 years old. We’d gone to my grandma’s house after getting haircuts at our friend and neighbor’s nearby salon, and the storm had steadily worsened the whole time we’d been there. Menacing black/charcoal sky, bucketing rain, deafening thunder and all.
Mom was turning around in the next door neighbor’s driveway, still pausing after looking behind us when we were hit. The bolt struck the antenna, and an unearthly greenish blue light outlined the car’s exterior. It was only a split second, of course, but time slowed enough for observations.
The car was completely unaffected. She backed up and parked.
I mentioned it to mom a number of years ago, but strangely, she didn’t remember it.
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When I was a kid in the 80’s I remember seeing cars with little ‘lightning strips’ hanging down from the rear bumper. Apparently these were supposed to allow any lightning that hit your car, to easily reach the ground, because the rubber tires would insulate it.
Even as a kid I wondered how lightning that had come from clouds hundreds of metres above, would be defeated by the few inches from the car to the ground.
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