Space Needle Lightning Strikes

**Cookie** · 05-20-2009, 04:49 PM

I saw the Space Needle in Seattle was struck by lightning? They said it was Eeerie.

http://www.komonews.com/weather/blog/45502097.html

**Cookie** · 05-20-2009, 07:25 PM

I couldn't figure out how to post that, I was hoping you could.
So, what was it like during this storm I heard it was a big?

**Redwood** · 05-21-2009, 06:52 AM

Lightning strikes to tall structures are pretty common. I would venture to guess that the picture shown is not at all an uncommon event at the Space Needle. Over here on the right coast probably the most commonly taken picture of lightning striking a building is probably The Empire State building taking a strike. Here is 2 of 206,00 from a google image search. http://images.google.com/images?gbv=...mages&aq=f&oq=

A google seach for the space needle yielded 133,000 results althoug not all were lightening strikes. http://images.google.com/images?gbv=...mages&aq=f&oq=

**Ian Gills** · 05-21-2009, 09:21 AM

That's why I have GFCIs in my bathroom. If I am sitting in the bath, watching TV while drying my hair with the hair dryer I can rest assured that I will be perfectly safe should a several hundred million volt bolt of lighting strike my abode at 5,000 to 20,000 amps. I'd just hear that little 'click' as it tripped.

**Redwood** · 05-21-2009, 11:04 AM

Ian, I don't want to burst your safety bubble but if that GFCI was to have lightning go through it...

There is nothing inside of it that would stop the lightning and you would not hear the click...

**Ian Gills** · 05-21-2009, 04:47 PM

Surely, then, a 15 amp Square-D breaker would protect my soapy body as God's fury rained down on my armored cable?

**cwhyu2** · 05-21-2009, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by Ian Gills

Surely, then, a 15 amp Square-D breaker would protect my soapy body as God's fury rained down on my armored cable?

sure it would

**master plumber mark** · 05-21-2009, 06:30 PM

Originally Posted by Ian Gills

Surely, then, a 15 amp Square-D breaker would protect my soapy body as God's fury rained down on my armored cable?

If you got hit by a real bolt from above,

their is a good chance that you would still be toast....

**jdf405** · 06-23-2009, 07:19 AM

A few years ago I hiked up 14,252 foot White Mountian in California. At the top there's a University of California research station with a bunch of weather equipment and... internet of all things.

Anyway, they have quite the rig up there for protecting against lightning. The hut had a lightning rod on each corner of the roof. These rods were all connected together in parallel. Then a thick wire went from each corner to a huge lead cable (about 2" thick) that is burried in the rock & rubble at the top. I asked someone working there about that and they said they can't get a good ground so they use lead since the rock & rubble bites into it.

I started the hike at 6AM and by 11AM clouds were brewing. We tagged the summit and high tailed it back down!

**Thatguy** · 06-23-2009, 09:36 AM

All of us live in the past about 100 milliseconds, some of us

longer into the past.
You'd never know what hit you.

Cookie, is your avatar a greatly magnified fertilized cat egg, and she will have twins?

**Cookie** · 06-24-2009, 01:04 AM

I can't remember which one was there, lol, how funny.
This is nosy, I know, but I know you have to have an advanced degree in math, where did you get yours at?

**Thatguy** · 06-24-2009, 12:13 PM

You tawkin' to me? Who you tawkin' to?

**Cookie** · 06-24-2009, 12:18 PM

ha ha ha ha, yes you, lol.

**Thatguy** · 06-24-2009, 12:24 PM

Got my BSEE from what used to be called "Nurk College of Engineering" in lovely Newark, N.J. (I still have bad dreams about that place) and an MSEE from U. of MD.
No math degree but I did pursue one for a while while I was in TX. I'm jealous of anybody, even Will Hunting, who lived in Mass and/or who went to MIT.

Never got interested in W.C. Fields or those stooge gentlemen you mentioned but Laurel & Hardy were funny.
But then, I'm . . .o. . .l. . .d. . .