That’s what Black Hills people asked about Gage McSpadden, struck and killed while playing disc golf on a course tucked into the mouth of Spearfish Canyon in July of 2015. And when lightning develops in a canyon, it’s easy to think, “How could it possibly find me under the cliffs and hidden among trees?” If you’re in a canyon and the sky above is blue, you’ll never guess it’s black and menacing just beyond the rim and moving your way. The Black Hills can offer a false sense of security. Man-made targets like fire lookouts, tall buildings and cell phone and wind turbine towers trigger more lightning than rocky peaks. Thunder that reverberates down canyons may sound as if lightning is bouncing off granite pinnacles and limestone cliffs, but Warner notes that those geological features are only rarely hit. Thunderstorm researcher Tom Warner, a native Californian who made Rapid City his observation base after Air Force service, says that the Hills see more positive cloud-to-ground lightning than most places, typically producing strikes of longer duration and carrying greater charge. The most consistently spectacular, it can be argued, is found in the Black Hills. The most terrifying South Dakota lightning is experienced in a boat on the Missouri River or a big lake in the northeast. Long vertical splits are telltale signs that a tree has been struck by lightning. It’s no wonder, I thought, that Crazy Horse - who knew these prairies and their seasonal moods well - saw lightning as symbolizing his own mighty power. After half an hour the show was suddenly over and a calm, cool night followed. How close? The storm wasn’t exactly on top of me, but it proved pointless to count the seconds whenever a big bolt hit. Wind forced me to pull my car off the road far from any shelter, and I sat in awe watching lightning hit the ground 360 degrees around me, more strikes per minute than I could count. One night in Stanley County, I watched two big storms collide. You can monitor whether it’s coming toward you or moving a different direction and calculate its distance by counting seconds between a flash and the sound of thunder reaching your ears. On open South Dakota prairies, you can watch as a lightning storm brews miles away. Florida is the number one state for lightning strikes, but next are the states comprising Tornado Alley, right up the center of the nation. The lightning I’ve known in South Dakota is every bit as intimidating (or impressive, depending on your point of view) as the strikes my great-grandmother saw generated by Mississippi Valley summer storms. Gary Say, a retired Forest Service forester who fought wildfires across the west for 30 years, says the percentage of trees struck by lightning that burst into flame is only about 1 percent. Lightning, too - some multiple times across decades. An examination of our forests proves that thousands of trees live through Understanding that it wasn’t necessarily so was enough to dissolve her phobia.īetween 75 and 80 percent of people struck by lightning survive, as does the majority of livestock, though that’s harder to measure. A psychologist friend of mine theorized that before being struck, she considered lightning certain death. Or maybe she took the old adage about lightning never striking twice literally. I heard my great-grandmother’s descendants speculate that perhaps she had a near-death experience that changed her view of life. On second thought, maybe that isn’t so strange, because encounters with lightning often change people. Strangely, this girl with a lightning phobia never feared it again after that day and was, in fact, somewhat lackadaisical about it. I wouldn’t be here to tell her story if she hadn’t. She saw plenty of it growing up in the Mississippi River Valley, but not the bolt that seemingly came from nowhere and slammed her to the ground. Photo by Greg Latza.Īs a little girl, my great-grandmother found lightning terrifying.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |