Post date: Apr 20, 2019 4:13:37 PM
Is it safe to use cell phones during lightning?
Many may not know this, but at any given moment, there are approximately 2,000 thunderstorms occurring in the world, resulting in about 100 lightning strikes every second. Lightning is caused by clouds that are electrically charged. Typically the top of a cloud is positively charged whereas the bottom is negatively charged. This causes a positive charge to build up on the ground beneath the cloud. The grounds electrical charge concentrates around anything that sticks up, such as mountains, people, or single trees, or of course, lightning arresters. The charge coming up from these points eventually connects with a charge reaching down from the clouds, resulting in a lightning strike.
The claim that mobile phones are a risk when used in a storm is misleading. If a person is standing out in the open and a positive charge builds around him, when the potential is just right, there will be a lightning strike - whether he is talking on a cellphone or not.
The concern that mobile phones attract lightning was first raised a number of years ago in an internet hoax and is now a recognized urban myth. According to safety authorities, people who are outside increase their risk of being struck if they are on high ground, or in an open space, or near a body water or near large metallic structures or trees. These factors are more important to safety in an electrical storm than the use of a mobile phone. Mobile phones are low power devices and do not have any characteristics which would make them attractive to lightning strikes. Nowadays, nearly everyone carries a mobile-phone, and so it is blamed when anyone is struck by lightning.
Contrary to the belief that the metal components of cell phones and portable media players make users of such devices targets in thunderstorms, lightning is most attracted to the tallest objects in a given area that provide the quickest and easiest path to the ground. The reason trees are so often struck is because they’re usually the tallest potential conductors in a given area.
Whilst on the subject, I would like to mention that landlines are not safe when a thunderstorm is in progress. This is because, hundreds of kilometers of wire is in the open, connecting to the landline at home - and if there is a lightning strike anywhere, the current may travel through the telephone cables and reach the instrument to which it is connected. If no one is using the instrument at that time, the instrument or the circuitry inside may get fried; but if someone is using the instrument - there are chances that the person may get severely burnt by the high voltage appearing at the instrument and going to ground. Since it is not a direct hit, the current being distributed unevenly, it forces the bulk of the current to flow through the outer surface or skin giving rise to the phenomena called skin effect. I have seen a person who was burnt like this, one leg of his pants was neatly burnt vertically as if done with a welding torch, and his skin burnt in the process.