Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Can this happen to you?

On this day in 1990, lightning hit a fish farm in Scott, Arkansas and killed 10,000 pounds of fish. Mostly due to the heat generated by the strike. I was wondering if anyone has ever experienced or think their pond has been hit by lightning?

Heybud,

Never seen it effect my ponds but have lost cows to it under a tree that was hit by it...not a pretty sight.

I lost a horse to a lightning strike close to 20 years ago. At the time it seemed really bad, but after all this time it's the best way I've seen for a horse to go.

Had a barn struck about 5 years ago; I found more damage from that as recent as last December.

I wonder if a lightning strike would necessarily be noticed in every pond? It seems it would be most obvious in small/shallow, heavily stocked ponds which get frequent attention (like at a fish farm). In a big, deep, body of water visited infrequently, fish kills from lightning might not be as severe (if the heat is the biggest problem), or at least would be missed more easily.

No I have not seen or even heard of it. But I do know that Bruce tried to boil his YP alive in a hot tub. I guess that means you can have outside sources that heat the water up to much. :p

Theo - my Dad lost one of his horses to lightning 10 years ago which was a real bummer, we had done imprint training on him when he was born and this horse liked people better than other horses. He was one of the few horse that I have ever seen that would walk up and stick his head the halter.

Heybud,

I don't want to be a fly in the ointment, but I don't think lightning can heat large amounts of water.

A lightning flash only lasts a few milliseconds. Transferring heat that quickly would only result in a small local steam explosion, and heat would not have nearly enough time to be tranferred to the water.

I think it may be possible for lightning to electrocute fish, under the right conditions.

Bobad, You are probably right. The article stated that heat killed them, but very well could have been electrocusion.

Electrocution seems more likely to me, FWIW.

Shorty, the gelding I lost is the only one we've had in 24 years that was MY horse. He was the one who taught me that horses "have people"; he would come up to me on bad days and try to make me feel better (and succeed). I had him trained not to react to gunfire and had hoped to take him horseback hunting one day.

Could electrocution be considered dying of heat? Current thru the body would tend to heat up the blood. Fish are cold blooded(as is this post) and cant change their body temp. fast enough. What say you? :rolleyes:

Theo, my dad's horse was also a geld too and just 5 years old.

Since we are talking about electricity and fish I need to tell you a story from when I was still 14 years old. A friend and I had gone down to a nearby creek to seine minnows for bait, well we got a months supply worth on that outing. So when we got home we set up an aquarium areator and air stone next to the tank to keep them in. Well the next day I went out and the dang pump had vibrated off the shelf and had fallen into the tank. All of the minnows where behaving normally so I stuck my hand into the retrieve the air pump. Boy was I "SHOCKED" when my hand hit the water as it was still plugged into the wall. The funny thing is the electricty didn't seem to bother the minnows at all. That day I learned never to assume that circut breaker had kicked the juice off on its own.

All I can say for sure is that both the hand crank phone system and the electroshock boat can both do a number on fish. To much juice and they do more than just float up.

Shorty, Mr. Wizard doesn’t seem to be in, so here’s a shot at why you got shocked. If the air pump was in the tank, and if the tank was glass, the system was insulated, and there was no “ground,” so the water was charged, but it had no current flux except through its original circuit. When you stuck your hand in, you furnished the ground for the circuit, and the result was a memorable zap.

It may not be good science, but I convince myself easily.
Lou

"Shorty"

Sounds good, Mudcat Joe. Welcome back.
They say, if your car is struck by lightning, dont step out of the car and cause a path between the car and ground. The rubber tires have the car insulated(unless, like some folks, the tailpipe is always dragging). Leap out like a frog.

Lou good to hear from you. That sounds like if I touch the negative pole of the battery -- ok -- but if I touch both poles I complete the circuit and -- ouch. If the car is running and you do that then you will have a small idea what lighting is like if you can pick your self up off the ground.

Circuit

Good advice if you knock over a power pole and have a live line touching the car, BM (unless you're my Brother-in-Law, then step away). I'm not sure this is necessary for a lightning strike (no continued electrical source), but I believe I'd leap like a frog if I needed to exit the car in that case as well.

FWIW rubber tires are not required, the predominantly metal shell of the car forms a "Faraday Cage", which prevents exterior electrical currents from being induced inside the car. Corvettes excluded.

Oh, yes. The ole Faraday box. We actually have one at our shop. It shields RF from passing thru it. It has an RF jack on it. We put EPIRBs(emergency position indicating radio beacons) in it for testing; then connect the decoder up to the jack. Otherwise there would be a false alert going out to the satellite.
Re the lightning hitting a car. I believe the theory is, that the car would hold a static charge due to being insulated from the pavement(a difference of potential) between it and the wet puddle you are bound to step into(trust me, lightning causes a wet puddle). 25 yrs. ago, I was directly across the Houston ship channel on a ship when the Chevron Hawaii was struck by lightning and blew totally up. A former collegue of mine and his trainee were leaving the ship and were walking on deck. They and a ship worker were killed. To this day, when I hear a lightning strike, I jump straight up. I was on the bridge of the other ship working on their radar. It cracked all the windows and blew a window out and glass on me. So, like you, I dont think I would be stepping out of the car.

The heat generated from the average lightning bolt (negative charged ) is 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.( 50,000 degrees F )Positive charged bolts can be 6-10 times hotter and more powerful. So in theory, it is possible to super-heat a small portion of a body of water and lead to the warming of the entire body of water as temps balance. I would think it is plausable that a body of water could be warmed enough to not support certain species of fish quite easily.

Something makes me think that Bobad might be correct, what was in the water that attracted the lightning may have been the thing that absorbed the heat and killed the fish. Think about one of those big oak trees that some of you have as structure or that old Case tractor?. The milisecond thing is not exactly true in all cases, at least in some flashes I have seen, both here and in Tennessee. One bolt will fill the sky, attracting others with all grounding in the same spot. Here they sometimes look like spiderwebs. The thunder that follows is pretty awssome as well.