The landline phone had now been digitised and travels through glass fibre when you have fibre to the premises or fibre to the curb. Other options are fixed wireless, Skymuster and Starlink. With a few exeptions, the only copper wiring left is between the node to the premises. All of these methods require a mains electricity supply to the modem in the premises. The electricity lines are a perfect target for lightning. Remember phones will not work after a few hours of blackout. This includes mobile phones which use a local base station. Only battery backed up Fibre to the Premises phones will continue to work for any longer period.
For the engineer. What happens if you are in a car during a lightning storm? Cars are only partly a Faraday cage. The tyres contain conductive carbon. Just don’t get out during a storm! At least most of the interior of the car is non conducting.
A friend was in a domestic interstate flight which was hit by lightning. Since planes are not very tall when the wheels are up, the voltage difference the top and bottom surfaces of the plane is small.
In the early days of commercial aviation planes such as the DC3 and Super Constellation were made of metal. These days they are made of carbon fibre. Whilst carbon fibre will conduct electricity its resistance is higher, so if a current flows the voltage from one end to the other will be higher than it will be for metal of the same thickness.
The only real protection is to make sure all electronics are connected back to the same point to prevent any potential differences. Ie a wire from each piece of equipment. Lightning is more likely to strike the smallest area hence the list in the above post. Since most electronics is close to the nose of the aircraft, this minimises the amount of wiring back to the common point. thus minimises weight and operating cost. The wiring to the common point will include the metal case around electronic equipment.
I have seen a TV which was plugged into the power mains. The on off switch was blown apart. The antenna input on TVs usually contains a pair of high voltage capacitor in series on each wire. Capacitors do not conduct DC unless the voltage exceeds their rated value which in this case is in the thousands of volts. This provides some protection in the region of a strike.
A direct strike is a different matter. I was 100 m from a eucalypt tree which was in a direct strike. it exploded because the sap is conductive and then it rained to put the fire out.
Just before Christmas we were staying with my daughter in the Channel district of Southern Tasmania. There was a little grumbly distant thunder, then a sudden Big Bang which seemed close by. A few minutes later two fire trucks roared up the dirt road, bels & whistles going: a tree on a neighbouring property had been struck by dry lightning & was blazing merrily… They put out out very quickly, but how fortunate it was near a road! The CFS make it look easy sometimes, but they find themselves under heavy pressure when dry lightning is starting the fires. The Grampians fire started from 64 such strikes on one day…
I much prefer my thunderstorms to come with rain. Climate change is not just more heat & less rain: it’s all the weird combinations that are making it so ]hard to plan the defences we need.
There was a story on the evening news a few days ago (February 2025) wherein a lady in Sydney was killed by flying debris when lightning struck a tree close to her house.
When lightning strikes a tree the treesap boils instantly and the tree explodes sending bits and pieces in all directions. This may be a reason to stay away from windows during lightning storm.
Not just switching off, but UNPLUGGING all valuable appliances is good advice. Lightning strike close to the house will breach any switches but wont breach if appliance is unplugged.
Eg. Computers, televisions, hifi, etc
Some years ago I was watching TV during an electrical thunderstorm. There was a flash of lightning and the TV died coincident with the flash of lightning.
However the associated thunderclap didnt arrive until about 6 seconds later - meaning the lightning struck power lines at least 1.5 km away. As I live in a rural area with low density housing, I assume this means not many houses around to help absorb the energy of the strike. Hence my TV bit the dust. Perhaps in an urban area with high density housing the outcome might be different.
The lesson: if the apliance is valuable, unplug it from the power point during lightning storms.
The switches in modern electrical appliances are semiconductor switches, very easily breached by voltage surges.
That sounds like very good advice: I cannot however imagine it being easy to DO, in the heat of the moment. Consider the number of computers & TV sets in the average home: than there are often expensive electrical items always plugged in in the well-equipped kitchen. I always leave the bread maker, rice cooker, two microwaves plus espresso machine, kettle, toaster, and food processor plugged in. I had always thought that switching them off was enough: I confess that finding all those plugs & pulling them out has never previously crossed my mind.
Growing up in Yorkshire where all the houses were stone and had chimneys, the oldies would always tell you to open the doors so if a fireball came down your chimney it could get out! (Providing Santa wasn’t climbing down I presume.
You are correct it is a nuisance to have to go around and unplug all those devices.
However I have met a few people who have lost almost every electrical appliance in their home due to lightning strike close by.
I’m copping a thunderstorm now and have just unplugged all the high risk items.
One might perhaps be able to make a judgement call to act if the lightning strikes are close to your home - or not. Weigh up the risks of leaving the items plugged in. If you are in a built up urban area with high density housing your risk of appliance damage is lower because so many houses to absorb the energy of the lighting strike.
In a rural area where you are the only house for 500 metres, then your risk is higher as all that energy goes into your house.
Switching them OFF at the power point (but not actually unplugging them), provides a degree of protection, as the power point contains a mechanical switch which provides some isolation, more so than the electronic switch contained in many of the items you listed.
Most of the appliances you listed have an electronic switch (as opposed to the old style mechanical switch such as found on a power point). Electronic switches are readily breached by a voltage surge such as from lightning hitting the power lines close to your home**.
If the appliance has some form of standby power on system, such as the clock on a microwave oven, then power is always applied to that appliance even when it is not actually being used to microwave something.
** there are many factors and variables involved. Risk management - how close is the storm and the lightning strikes .
Last november lightning struck a telegraph pole about 250m from my homestead. It blew chunks of wood off the pole, took out the drop fuse on the power lines 100 metres down the road, blew 2 of the so called “surge protectors” in my home and resulted in a brownout lasting about 12 hours. A brownout is where the mains voltage falls to a very low level, in my case about 100 volts. This is indicated by the lights being unusually dim. I unplugged everything including the fridge on suspicion that a low voltage may damage the fridge compressor.
You could just unplug the expensive items and leave the low cost items plugged in (toaster, kettle, etc)
BB
One can never be sure or at home when it happens? We use surge protected power boards for the TV, Internet and any other valuable electronic powered household items where practical. To note many other house hold appliances including air conditioning, heat pump hot water, washing machines, dishwashers ovens, cooktops etc have upgraded from mechanical controls to digital. Some such as AC’s, heat pumps, cooktops as examples are permanently wired in, although they will have an isolation switch. Not proof against the high voltage spike of lightning.
There are two effects from lightning strikes. A direct hit will cause hundreds of thousands of Amperes of current to flow. Nothing will survive this. It will be a replace and claim on insurance for the contents of the property. This event is rare on one particular location as there is plenty of choice!! It is likely that even if you were to switch off the master switch in the meter box, there would be an arch between the contacts causing a spike which will destroy most of the connected appliances and wiring.
The more likely effect is the magnetic field created by the current flow being induced into above ground power lines. The very high voltage lines usually have a pair of earthed wires above the load carrying wires which tries to discharge the electrostatic field and is only partially effective.
Since many appliances including fixed and portable are connected to the electricity supply, high voltage spikes are induced which can be damaging. These spikes are supposed to be shorted out by the surge arrestors which usually destroys them along with filtering capacitors and some semiconductors and the windings on transformers depending on the size of the spike.
Switching off the master switch in the meter box will provide the most protection but it is not perfect. It also means you will have to reset the many electronic clocks.
The other physical wiring coming into a house other than electricity supply is Fibre to the Node Internet wiring. The pale green street cabinet is powered from the power line above so can also bring in spikes to modems. Fibre to the house cannot because glass is an insulator, although the modem etc is still mains powered.
Yes I’ve also seen MOV surge arrestors fried by lightning strike and the device they are alleged to protect also fries at the same time.
One could be misled into thinking surge protectors will be able to protect against lightning strikes.
Best advice: if an electrical storm is close by, particularly in a rural area where your home might be the only one within 200 metres, unplug the items you cannot live without. Eg. TV, computer, microwave oven, mobile phones.
You can buy a power bank to use for recharging your mobile phone during electrical storm. This keeps the phone totally isolated from the mains power system.
BB
I have re-read all of these posts. The presence of other houses is irrelevant. Lightning takes the easiest path between the cloud and the ground. Thus, tall structures and trees for that matter are closest to the clouds. In the USA, it is part of the electrical wiring code that external TV antennas poles are connected to an earth stake with a thick wire. We don’t require it. Since the voltages concerned are so high close lightning strikes will melt mains switches both in the meter box and in power points. Unplugging expensive devices from the mains is a great idea but what about other outside connections such as the TV & satellite antennae and don’t forget modem both power and the phone line if you are in a remote area which still has an optional copper above ground phone line.
The area with the most lightning strikes is the Northern coastal area of Australia, particularly prior to the arrival of the monsoon each year.
In the USA, it is part of the electrical wiring code that external TV antennas poles are connected to an earth stake with a thick wire. We don’t require it.
Why is the USA wiring code different to our code?
Or perhaps more to the point, why dont we use the USA code?
Is aussie lightning a gentler kind of electricity than they have in the USA?
The major difference between the USA and the Australian Electricity supplies.
Our single phase ordinary power points are 230 V whereas in the USA it is 120 V. This voltage is too low to use a kettle to boil water in a reasonable time and for heating appliances to get hot enough. So, some wall sockets have 3 pins with 120 V on two of the pins but they are 180° degrees apart but 120 Volts from one of those pins to earth. Using this outlet you get 240 V
They also have 3 phase in commercial properties. For us there is 400 V between the wires, they get 208 V. In addition, our power frequency is 50 Hz but the USA is 60 Hz. Some equipment are frequency sensitive to this.
I expect the earthing of antennas is in the USA National Electricity Code has come from their insurance industry Australian standard AS 3000 is the wiring standard for Australian conditions.
We have safety switches which have to be installed on all new installations because of the higher voltage. The lower supply voltage means that most consuming devices use more current. The current flow increases the heat generated in cabling unless the wire is thicker.
Our higher voltage delivers electrical power with less losses compared to the lower voltage supply.
As far as lighting goes, this is determined by the lighting technology used because incandescent lamps except for specialist applications are banned.
died coincident with the flash of lightning.
surges.
strike close by.
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