Lightning is a dangerous natural phenomenon that has throughout the centuries caused much alarm and destruction. There are also a lot of old wives' tales circulating about how to avoid its effects, and it is often difficult to sift the wheat from the chaff when the thunder starts rattling about you.

The signs that you may be entering a lightning storm are usually pretty obvious. You may hear thunder, or perhaps your hair may start standing on end or the sky adopts a yellowish tinge with large anvil shapes clouds hanging overhead. If you see or sense any of these, you need to start taking precautions.

Lightning, despite its destructive force, is lazy. It will always seek the path of least resistance in discharging its energy. That may well be the highest point, or the point that offers a simple route to ground. Unless you are prepared, that route could be you, so always be wary when lightning is threatening to rear its head. Be lower than other good conductors such as trees, church steeples and the like. Don't use metallic implements such as golf clubs and avoid sailing boats with metallic masts.

That lightning will continue to strike, however, and once it has struck ground it will have to disperse the energy somehow, so avoid standing near tall objects because they are likely to attract the bolts before the ground does. Trees, therefore, are something to avoid. They will attract lightning strikes, and if they are particularly knotty, they may explode with disastrous consequences.

Once the bolt has reached ground it doesn't remain harmless. The potential closer to the strike will be more than that further away, so if a path of low resistance is offered (eg a largely water-filled body such as yours) it will try and disperse through that rather than the ground, resulting in toast. Avoid offering such a path by keeping your feet together and you body low to the ground.

Perhaps paradoxically a car is a good place to be in a storm. Thanks to the Faraday effect the energy from a lightning strike will reamin concentrated in the metal of the car's body rather than being passed through your own vital organs.

Above all, respect lightning rather than fear it and remember to keep low and compact in order to minimize its potential effects.

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