Riding During Thunder Storms

[SQUEAKS]

Don't know how many have ever been trail riding when a storm comes up and the thunder and lightening goes wild but here is a link with some good info you might want to look at.

http://www.horses-and-horse-information.com/articles/0199lightening.shtml

Hope this helps

Bob:D

[Soltera]

Generally speaking, being within 10 miles of the storm’s epicenter puts you at an elevated risk of experiencing lightning.

A dead-on article. I've seen lighting come out of a blue sky! We were often over-cautious for summer camp programs; but better safe than sorry.

Thanks for posting!

[reuben T]

Yep, can't be too careful, a couple summers ago there were some lightning deaths of horse and human at east fork (12,000 ac riding facility in N central TN) And my uncle told me about a time when he was stopped for tail light problems on a midwest road when a storm was in sight but off at some distance, and when he was under the trailer trying to fix it he kept getting shocks untill it got so strong he jumped out of there fast. Then one of my grandfathers brothers was killed when he was driving a tractor in from the field, that was in the '30's i think.

[SQUEAKS]

Most of the time when we go riding it stays pretty good only a couple of times in the past 7 years have we run into some minor problems but the horses know where home is so we just point-em in the right direction and hold on.:v:

Sometimes the weather in North Florida can change in a matter of minutes.

Bob:D

[motorgypsy]

Great topic. Better safe than sorry.

I thought there were also some Florida horses and riders that were killed galloping back to their barn. The horses were shod.

Tampa is supposed to be the lightning capital of the world. A friend worked for Eastern Airlines and was standing on the runway at Tampa International airport during a storm. Lightning struck and killed a colleague who was standing right next to him.

My mother was hit twice indirectly when she and my dad came back in from fishing when a storm came up. Both times she grabbed the car door handle and the lightning hit the car and traveled down her arm and out her foot. She was fine but the entire area hurt for several weeks.

I was playing tennis at a country club in Cali Colombia and I looked at the person I was playing and her hair was standing on end. A storm was approaching. I told her we needed to get off the court immediately. She looked kind of funny but we did run to shelter and her hair went back down again. I've been told that this is a sure sign you're about get hit by lightning. We were just lucky because it hadn't rained yet and was very dry and there were other larger structures around us.

Oh I forgot - the lady who sold us Chinook lost a mare and foal to lightning. She saw them hit and it threw them about 20 feet. Another paso fino owner not far from us lost five of his paso finos to a lightning strike that hit a lone tree in his pasture. They were all standing under it in the rain. He had all his trees cut in his pasture. The mistake people make is instead of leaving a stand of trees for shelter from sun and rain and as a windbreak they will leave one tree here and there. This is a lightning magnet. Many cows are lost under lone trees that are struck.

Golf courses and soccer fields area also very dangerous places during a lightning storm.

You might think well water is not a conductor so why should you get out of the water during a storm? Pure water is not a conductor but both pool and pond water are loaded with dissolved minerals and are excellent conductors. I would certainly get out of the water if a storm approaches but I've never known anyone or anything that was killed while in the water but I know of many who were injured or died from being out in the open or under a lone tree. So please don't take chances.

You are very safe in your car and closed trailer. The metal shell will divert any lightning strike around the surface shell and down into the ground by way of the tires. So the reason you are safe is not because you are not grounded or because of the rubber tires, it is because of the fact that you are inside a metal shell which channels the charges down into the ground. This is probably what saved my mother. Most of the charge was spread out all over the car and went to ground through tires. She got just a small amount. A direct strike is possible supposedly if the windows of the car or trailer are open. But I don't think this is at all common.

[CarolU]

Scary subject!

Low areas. I guess where most of you are this is impossible, but here, moving down to low areas is the safest. Hard to avoid trees in the mountains. I try not to ride when there is bad weather forecast. Luckily here that is pretty easy to do.