Re: Thunder and lightning...

[Sue Brown <sbrown@wamedes.com>]

At 09:35 PM 7/23/00 -0700, Duncan Fletcher wrote:
>Keep away from high ground. Keep away from isolated tall objects. But a
>forest of equal trees is ok and even better would be a group of smaller
>trees among larger trees. A road surrounded by trees would be relatively
>safe. For more information see http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_pls.html
>and http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/~doswell/tstm_camping_safety.html.

Thanks, Duncan!  I picked correctly then...just kept hoping that I wasn't
cruising along side the biggest tree in the forest and I was going to be
the recipient of wooden shrapnel shortly from a nearby exploding tree.  The
news talked of a tree that was hit a bit south of us that sent tree pieces
for 100' in all directions.

>
>It is not the rubber tires, but the steel cage that makes cars safer. 

Really??  I always thought it was the rubber tires...an insulator of sorts.
 So then is the trailer protected? 

You
>didn't get hail? 

Yes, I got hailed on also...but I was too busy retreating (as fast as
possible) to pay much attention to it.  (Had some the night before that was
*very* noisy on the arena roof.)  Got home after my hasty retreat and went
to clean my glasses off...found out that I had scratched them pretty bad
during the retreat -- going too fast (and too nervous) to worry about
ducking from all of the leaves and branches in my path.  Thank heaven for
helmets...saved my head, but didn't keep the branches off of my face! ;-)

You should have heard the noise of the hail against the
>metal roof and fairground barns and the arena when the hail hit. There was
>Peruvian Paso show going on that got held up because no one could hear the
>announcer. I was in the barns. Horses handled it pretty well - a couple were
>a bit excited for the first couple of minutes but seem to settle down when
>the roof didn't fall down. I have seen stronger storms elsewhere, but non
>since I moved to western Washington.

I can imagine that the fairgrounds arena was horrid in the hail!  Glad the
horses were all okay.

I made up for yesterday's scary ride by having an absolutely fabulous one
today...same weather starting out -- cloudy, looked like rain, VERY muggy
-- but something happened and we ended up riding for nearly 5 hours with
blue sky and warm temperatures.  Very typical western Washington weather
today...yesterday was not!!

Sue

sbrown@wamedes.com
Tyee Farm
Marysville, Wa.