{"id":27374,"date":"2024-04-30T23:07:16","date_gmt":"2024-05-01T03:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/?p=27374"},"modified":"2024-04-30T23:07:17","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T03:07:17","slug":"lightning-safety-while-working-or-playing-outside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/2024\/04\/lightning-safety-while-working-or-playing-outside\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning safety while working or playing outside"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Do you spend a lot of time outside this time of year? It could be working on a tractor, feeding cattle, golfing, or out on the water. If so, you should also be weather-aware and be prepared to find a safe place to get away from severe weather, high winds, lightning, and hail. Here are a number of recent articles that discuss what you should and should not do to protect yourself from lightning strikes. I was surprised to note that the crouch position that some articles recommend to help protect yourself from lightning is no longer recommended by the National Weather Service, so don&#8217;t count on that to save you from getting hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Outside<\/em>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/outdoor-adventure\/hiking-and-backpacking\/lightning-safety-facts-hikers\/?scope=anon\">Everything You Know About Lightning Safety in the Backcountry Is Wrong<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>CDC<\/em>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/disasters\/lightning\/safetytips.html\">Lightning safety tips<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Weather.gov<\/em>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weather.gov\/safety\/lightning-crouch\">The National Weather Service (NWS) stopped recommending the crouch in 2008<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many weather apps provide some information about current lightning, but if you don&#8217;t have one that does that, you can use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lightningmaps.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.lightningmaps.org\/<\/a> to view current lightning strikes. Keep in mind that in rapidly developing storms, lightning may suddenly occur where it was not previously striking, but at least this will give you a sense of how close lightning is. Lightning can also be a sign of severe weather, so if you see a lot of lightning in a small area occurring quickly, that is a sign that severe weather is developing or occurring there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/lightning-7-1-2015.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"786\" height=\"686\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/lightning-7-1-2015.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/lightning-7-1-2015.jpg 786w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/lightning-7-1-2015-300x262.jpg 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/07\/lightning-7-1-2015-158x138.jpg 158w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 786px) 100vw, 786px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Source: Lightningmaps.org 7-1-2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you spend a lot of time outside this time of year? It could be working on a tractor, feeding cattle, golfing, or out on the water. If so, you should also be weather-aware and be prepared to find a safe place to get away from severe weather, high winds, lightning, and hail. Here are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":3650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16,26,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-and-ag-in-the-news","category-climate-science","category-health","category-severe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27390,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27374\/revisions\/27390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}