Any object can accumulate charge. A charged object can send out
streamers. If one of those streamers happens to connect lightning will
strike and complete the path.
Of course a more conductive object will handle the strike better than a
poorly conducting one once a strike occurs.
A poorly conducting tree for example will heat up the moisture in it and
turn it to steam and cause parts of the tree to be blown away by the
steam pressure.
The lightning hitting that tree may arc to a better path part way down
the poor conducting tree, leaving destruction from the arc.
A well grounded tower if hit will conduct the strike harmlessly to
ground with little fan fare.
You can walk across a carpet and build up a charge on your body.
Touching some other object you will feel the discharge. The object you
touch to cause the discharge doesn't have to be grounded either.
An object doesn't have to be grounded to accumulate a charge. Nor does
it have to be particularly conductive.
There are many cloud to cloud lightning strikes also. No ground involved.
73
Gary K4FMX
doc wrote:
> I am no electrical engineer or physicist but this doesn't sound right.
>
> The energy in lightning exists within the physical laws and would seem
> to be seeking a state of balance, and one expects would do so as
> efficiently as possible.
>
> Would it not flow through the *best* path versus a lesser path should
> both options present?
>
> Why would lightning fail to follow a superior path versus a lesser
> path?
>
> Puzzled in lighting-alley Florida, doc
>
> > Gary Schafer wrote:
>
>>Any tree or structure type in a given location has as good a chance as
>>the next to be hit. A grounded tower has about the same chance of being
>>hit as an ungrounded one. Conductivity of an object has little to do
>>with its chance of being hit by lightning.
>>73 Gary K4FMX
>
>
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