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Second of two parts — Eds.



Wyoming is an average state when it comes to the number of days thunderstorms will occur, a valley meteorologist says.

Florida leads the nation on that score, said Jim Woodmencey, radio weatherman, meteorologist and operator of Mountainweather.com. In Wyoming, lightning strikes the ground at least once on only about 40 days a year, he said.

But when it comes to deaths, Wyoming finds itself at the top of the list this year, along with Georgia. According to statistics com-piled by StruckbyLightning.org, an independent clearinghouse, three persons have died in each of the two states so far in 2010.

One of those Wyoming deaths was Brandon Oldenkamp who was knocked off the Grand Teton by a lightning strike July 21. The Web page lists only one death in Florida.

That’s only one seemingly contradictory aspect of lightning, which despite drawing attention as an awesome and universal phenomenon, remains somewhat mysterious. Information about lightning can confound the public, create debate among educators, and lead even scientists to admit they are at a loss to explain all its aspects.

That thunder and lightning should signal retreat is something every dog knows, as do most people by the time they are of grade-school age. Many aspects of lightning and thunderstorms are well-understood and easily taught.

“It’s sixth-grade science,” Woodmencey said.

When pressed to explain some aspects, however, he reaches for his college notes and groans a scientist’s lament: “We don’t understand it completely.”

“I’ll bet you the average physics teacher, he would have to run to a book,” Woodmencey said during a discussion about positive and negative charges, volts and amps, stepped leaders, ionized paths, plasma columns and pilot streamers.

“Lightning is kind of a hard thing to study,” he said. “It puts you at great risk. It isn’t easily explained.”

Lightning victim Michael Utley, who formed StruckbyLightning.org in 2000, agrees some aspects are not understood. And despite ample knowledge about other aspects, education on safety is flawed, he said.

As an example of the conundrum, “We don’t know how lightning starts,” Utley said. “We haven’t come that far from Ben Franklin.”

After years of study, his mantra is simple: “There’s no safe place outside in a thunderstorm,” he said in a telephone interview this week. “There’s nothing you can do.”

Why then is there so much advice regarding lightning? Why does Utley think the National Outdoor Leadership School is wrong to teach the “lightning position,” an admittedly controversial crouch advocated as a last resort that might reduce the chances of being hit or shocked?

“Unfortunately, the government is looking for something to tell people to do,” he said of advice such as getting down.

If you want to be safe from thunderstorms and lightning, go inside, he urges. And if one is in the backcountry and can’t, “prayer is a good thing,” he said.

Utley seems to take particular relish in deriding the lightning position. NOLS curriculum manager John Gookin advocates adopting the crouch, with the feet together, to reduce the chance of ground currents traveling from foot to foot through the body or of side flashes hitting a person.

Although instructor Gookin is careful to say that crouching is not a defense against the rare direct strike, Utley rejects the concept outright.

“If you think going to three feet from six feet makes a difference at all when you’re taking about something five times hotter than the sun with the power of a nuclear power plant moving at a couple million miles an hour, I’ve got a bridge to Idaho to sell you,” Utley said. “It doesn’t work.

“You’re trying to give people an option when there isn’t one,” he said. “You’re perpetuating something that gets people doing the wrong thing.”

Turning to science, Utley said, “Nothing attracts lightning.”

Charged thunderclouds send feelers or “stepped leaders” groundward looking to make a connection. Similar “pilot streamers” grow skyward for shorter distances. The two are ionized, plasma columns, narrow, magnetic channels through which charges travel.

In a completely flat world, a person would do well to crouch, Utley says. This has been described in a scientific paper, Utley said, adding his footnote: “There’s no perfectly flat place in the world.”

Even blades of grass and pebbles can emit upward pilot streamers. Each is a potential connection point.

“Which one does the lightning pick?” he asked. “Who knows?” It’s a matter of chance.

He dismisses the notion that lightning always strikes the tallest thing around. “There’s a picture of lightning hitting a blade of grass next to the Washington Monument,” he said.

“Lightning is like an elephant,” Utley said. “It goes where it wants. It doesn’t have to hit the tall objects — it can hit the short objects.”

To help comprehend lightning’s randomness, he describes the average bolt. It is 10 to 15 miles long. One recorded in Houston was 112 miles long.

On such an electronic odyssey, Utley asked, what difference does a few feet — or a few dozen, a few hundred or even a few thousand feet — make to a massive bolt?

Mountains, which Woodmencey says receive seven times more lightning strikes than a valley, may get more strikes not necessarily because they are higher but because they force lifting that charges clouds and storms, Utley said.

If one believes that taller objects are more prone to being struck, and also that crouching or keeping your feet together will reduce your chances of becoming a lightning victim, he suggested an unusual tactic.

“Squat down on one foot and hop downhill,” he said. “Lighting outdoor safety — it is a joke.”

Sometimes it seems as if Utley uses hyperbole to make his point. In fact, he agrees that lightning tends to strikes higher places more often, and his Web page says to avoid such places. Scientists know that air is a good resistor to electricity and the ground, high peaks included, is not.

Utley advocates scheduling outdoor activities to avoid lightning and to avoid trees, one of Gookin’s first recommendations. And Utley urges CPR, the rescue first-aid that saved him when he was struck on a golf course.

While he preaches largely to the urban crowd — “When thunder roars, go indoors!” — he would propose advice for the backcountry.

“I would spread out so if somebody is struck, the other people could give him CPR,” he said, echoing a recommended NOLS tactic. “If in a tent, I’d probably stay in the tent and stay dry.”

If he were hiking with a group, he would probably ask members to spread out and keep moving, “just so I had only one foot on the ground,” he said.

Metal climbing gear doesn’t attract lightning, but it will conduct it, he said. Also, it will burn once it serves as a conduit.

Finally, climbers carry a particular danger, he said.

“The biggest problem with climbers is the wet ropes,” Utley said. “It hits one wet rope and it’s going down to hit everybody.”