How do you protect yourself in the case of storm?

If a storm comes and you catch in the field, you run to protect yourself in the car. There is a scientific basis behind this council. “Vehicles are a good hiding place, not only because of the insulator they have in the wheels, but because they act as an ‘Faraday cage’: if a jet falls on the car, the generated electricity is distributed by the surface, but not inside and discharges on the floor at a point in the shape of a tip, such as the exhaust tube.” The effect is that of an umbrella and explains graphic Mar Gómez, a specialist in the physics of the atmosphere and responsible for the area of ​​meteorology in Eltiempo.es. It also says that on earth “44,000 storms are generated per day, more than 16 million a year, which discharge 100 rays per second.” Translated into volts, “5,000 million watts per second.” Used the energy that we could do “100,000 toast with a thousand watts toaster.” A super breakfast … but, go, take it better without leaving the car.

September is the most stormy month of the year and if there is more chance to attend that hypnotic and dangerous show of the rays. “This month, 24% of the electrical discharges from Wolken of the Year will be registered,” confirms Rubén del Campo, spokesperson for the Spanish Meteorology Office (AEMET), a percentage that is reduced to 2% on average during the winter campaign.

The hours of a larger incidence of the storms are those of the afternoon (from three to five) and from seven to eleven in the morning the piece less tormenting activity, while in the winter “a slight great frequency of the morning and in the fall is usually observed in the afternoon.”

According to the data collected from Aemet in Spain, 289 days of storms per year are produced, unevenly distributed by geographical areas. “There are two authentic ‘storm poles’: the area between Southeast Teruel and the northwest of Castellón – there is the so -called Sierra del Rayo – and the Aragonese and Catalan Pyrenees area.”

The percentage of people who survive the fall of lightning – Mar Gómez – is 90%, although the injuries it can leave behind are serious: «Ray generates energy in a matter of Microseconds. This electrical current that crosses our body generates heat that burns and destroys tissues. That is why it can burn burns, knowledge losses, brain problems, cataracts, numbness of the skin and stains on the skin and even a cardiac arrest ».

Here are some tips for protecting ourselves against the rays, while the storm reaches us, “an adverse weather phenomenon of the first order,” said Aemet Meteorologists.

When you travel the electrical charge of the lightning for all metal elements of the car, it does not reach the interior, “when the windows are closed and there is no air flow,” says Mar Gómez, who collects this and other warnings in connection with meteorology in his book ‘What are the drops of rain to the hamburger bread’ (Martíneza). It recommends “Wait a while” before you leave the car “because the surface will be loaded with electricity.”

The protection of a building is already a guarantee in itself, but it is useful to take extra precautions, the expert explains. “Contact with tubes and electric cables, use electronic devices or open open doors and windows, because they create air flows with which electricity can be channeled.”

The trees that offer such heat days become an extra danger in the case of rays, as is known. “Electricity is looking for the freest and least resistance to the road when producing the discharge, and the trees offer that benefit for the rays.”

A river, a lake, the sea … bad places to find the storm. “Water is one of the least safe spaces because this medium is a good conductor of electricity.” In this case Mar Gómez continues, the ray could reach us, even if he didn’t fall where we are. This is possible because “when a jet falls into the water, horizontally is expanded instead of vertically, so that we can reach ourselves, even if we are at a distance from where the impact took place.” And what happens to the fish? They do not suffer from the consequences of these electric discharges “because when the discharge occurs horizontally, this has no influence on them, because they usually swim more depth,” the author illustrates in her book.