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Registered Member #2028
Joined: Mon Mar 16 2009, 08:13PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 319
Avalanche wrote ...
If these step leaders can be seen, then what is the electron path when the step leader is forming? Either that or what am I missing
Im not shure i understood your question. Step leader is just a fancy name for a spark, really. It can be seen because of the high temperatures makes the ionized air glow, and though the current traveling through a leader is way lower than that of the the actual lightning bolt, it is still significant (10-100A according to Wikipedia).
TDU posted this .gif a few weeks ago:
Here you can clearly see the step leaders branching down from the cloud, and the massive current pulse as one of the step leaders reaches ground. The positive streamers are too short to be visible in this animation.
Pay special attention to the upper left corner in the beginning of this animation, and you can see a step leader traveling upwards, witch would seem completely illogical. So you cannot accurately predict lightning, it is just too many factors involved.
Registered Member #15
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068
A 3 foot high tesla coil putting out a 4 foot arc directed upward will attract lightning no more than a 7 foot pole sticking into the ground at the same location.
Registered Member #580
Joined: Mon Mar 12 2007, 03:17PM
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 410
Dr. GigaVolt wrote ...
A 3 foot high tesla coil putting out a 4 foot arc directed upward will attract lightning no more than a 7 foot pole sticking into the ground at the same location.
yeh, with the point being the sparks coming out reaching upward increases the chances compared to the sparks not being there, because it added extra height to it.
Registered Member #1739
Joined: Fri Oct 03 2008, 10:05AM
Location: Moscow, Russia
Posts: 261
Not that simple :p With a high dU/dt that is achieved during the storm something like this has a better chance to form off your top load then off a nearby object of an alike size. Indeed, the spark already brings the initial breakdown, so it will be easier for one to grow then for another one to form - just like for a TC itself it's easier to hold on an existing arc channel then to create a new one, even off the breakout rod (of course, in case the original one will not fade away before the new one forms). So speaking theoretically, yes, a TC can "attract" a lightning. However in reality the chances are not that spectacular - the lightning will strike your TC only in case if there would be no TC it'd strike a nearby tree/ground/whatever less then like 100m away (100 would be for a flat ground without very high trees around). It will not be an ultimate storm control device though ;)
Registered Member #2028
Joined: Mon Mar 16 2009, 08:13PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 319
LithiumLord wrote ...
Not that simple :p With a high dU/dt that is achieved during the storm something like this has a better chance to form off your top load then off a nearby object of an alike size.
Registered Member #15
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068
LithiumLord wrote ...
Not that simple :p With a high dU/dt that is achieved during the storm something like this has a better chance to form off your top load then off a nearby object of an alike size. Indeed, the spark already brings the initial breakdown, so it will be easier for one to grow then for another one to form - just like for a TC itself it's easier to hold on an existing arc channel then to create a new one, even off the breakout rod (of course, in case the original one will not fade away before the new one forms). So speaking theoretically, yes, a TC can "attract" a lightning. However in reality the chances are not that spectacular - the lightning will strike your TC only in case if there would be no TC it'd strike a nearby tree/ground/whatever less then like 100m away (100 would be for a flat ground without very high trees around). It will not be an ultimate storm control device though ;)
Sorry, thats not the case. Statisticially speaking, there will be little difference. Again, a TC will attract lightning no better than an object comparable in size and geometry. Unless your TC is of a size that is absolutely gargantuan, the ionization created by it will not have any effect on localized fields.
Registered Member #1739
Joined: Fri Oct 03 2008, 10:05AM
Location: Moscow, Russia
Posts: 261
A 1m tall TC with a 1m upward spark will be a more likely target then a 2m pole. However keeping in mind the randomness there, the strike probability will be very low anyway, and we are not counting a 2x growth dangerous even if it's 0.2% vs 0.1% (it's way lower in reality) ;) Btw there was an interesting picture around the web a while ago, which was worth the photographer his clean pants - it depicts a lightning bolt and a few nearby leaders, one forming like a couple of meters in front of the guy and being like 1m tall. Talking about statistics ;)
Registered Member #1221
Joined: Wed Jan 09 2008, 06:17PM
Location: Odense, Denmark
Posts: 196
Recently a football player got struck by lightning in Denmark during a macht, I've never been to a football field but I reckon there's alot of rather tall metal poles for all the lights and stuff, so the 'logical' thing would be if the lightning had hit one of the tall poles but it went all the way down to the ground and hit the dude instead. So it would seem to me that the lightning just go where it want to go, and its nothing we can do about it.
The article also mentions some 'expert' saying its impossible to predict lightning, he claims that lightning can hit anywhere - no matter how many poles (Or coils I guess) or how tall they are.
link: it's in danish so its probably got limited use.
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is lightning attracted to a tesla coil?
