So yeah, last night it was around 55*, and a storm came rolling in. Lots of lightning and heavy rain. Anyways, I had walked into the kitchen when it was storming still, and FLASH! There was a big bright flash in the backyard, and I didn't think nothing of it, except that it was pretty close. Well................. yeah, TOO close.


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Struck the tree in our backyard, about 30ft from the house.
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Something tells me that it damaged the tree to the extent to where it needs to be cut down. Now the tree makes cracking noises. Luckily it'* leaning towards the wide open backyard in case it falls.

Now you know where to stand in the next storm. Everyone knows lightning doesn't strike twice in the same spot!

it didn't even crack open? usually the sap boils from the inside out and cracks open the tree.

It'* cracked towards the top. The burn mark itself is about 25-30 feel long. I only got 2 pics, and the batteries died on me.

Lightning has hit a huge larch tree next to my parents' house a few times. First time, it knocked 10 feet off the top. The second time I remember, it split most of the trunk all the way down and sent sap, needles, bark, and cones in every direction. I was looking at our dog on the porch when it happened. The suprised look on his face as he got pelted was pretty good. The side of the house was spattered with sap, and Rusty (the dog) was chewing sap out of his left side fur for a week.

The tree is still kickin' 15 years later.

a teacher at my old high school got struck by lightning TWICE... we all avoided him when it was raining.... I wonder why..

What about lightening rods? :?

we had a pine tree get hit not far from our garage. The cars were covered in bark, and it smelled like fireworks got shot off inside the house and sounded like a bomb went off.

Actually, that'* not how lightning rods really work. Common misconception. Lightning rods actually prevent lightning strikes by grounding the static charge, so that the area around it is no longer part of the circuit path for the lightning bolt.

Also, if it was raining, the lighting probably ran through the layer of water on the outside of the bark. We had a strike at my parents place, one of the cottonwood trees about thirty feet from the house, that grounded that way for most of the tree'* height, but blew a small crater in the dirt at the base of the tree.

There'* a tree in one of our fields that got struck probably 6 or 7 years ago and i slowly falling apart. We just wait for a branch to fall and cut it up and haul it off. Also last night lightning knocked out all the computers at the store so everyone got an extra paid 30 minute break.