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    You are at:Home»Uncategorized»Lightning and safety
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    Lightning and safety

    adminBy adminOctober 29, 2014No Comments1 Min Read
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    Lightning bolts flash across the Grahamstown skyline and light up the clouds during the thunderstorm on Monday 27 October.

    Lightning bolts flash across the Grahamstown skyline and light up the clouds during the thunderstorm on Monday 27 October.

    Photographed from the Settlers Monument, these lightning strikes were captured using a long exposure which allowed for more than one bolt of lightning to be recorded on a single frame.

    Retired Rhodes University Physics lecturer Richard Grant says the safest place to be during a severe thunderstorm is inside a metal structure, such as a car, caravan or metal-framed building.

    A lightning conductor – a metal rod that protrudes well above roof height – is the best way to protect a building.

    "The pointed tip promotes a coronal discharge," Grant told Grocott's Mail.

    "This dissipates the powerful electrical charge​ and may even prevent a strike​." 

    ​
    A​t night the ​coronal discharge can sometimes be seen as an eerie glow and old time mariners who saw it on the masts and spars of their sailing ships called it St Elmo's fire.
     
     

    Photo: Jeff Stretton-Bell

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