In my bid to get suitable answers to some of the salient question raised in the first part of this topic, I came across so many definitions and explanations about what thunder and lightning actually is. But none of them could give an explicit and a generally acceptable definition about the natural phenomenon. Further studies show that thunder is so domineering that strike/fight any opposition, force or power. And nobody knows exactly where it is likely to strike next.
When I was sent to carry out my one-year industrial attachment/training at a well-known Radio and Television outfit in 2012, I was forced to ask more and more questions and thunder and its activities.
At an orientation organized by the management for new technical and engineering staff and industrial trainees, our trainer was so emphatic that we should quickly put of the Radio or TV transmitter not minding who is on air or what program that is running once we notice any serious weather changes. He informed us that the management will hold whosoever that is on duty responsible if any equipment got damaged by thunder. This instruction was boldly written in the transmitter halls.
He explained that sometime around 2011, the station suffered serious damages from a thunder attack. According to him, the incident happened when the station was running while it was raining. Lighting and thunder entered through a very tall Service Antenna mounted within the premises of the station, and damaged more than 70% of the equipment ranging from the transmitters of the Radio and TV stations to fiber-optic cables and connectors in the station.
Some staff on duty sustained bodily injuries while running helter-scatter the day the incident took place, meanwhile Mr. Thunder was not looking for them. The station stayed off-air for almost two years which caused a very big lost to both staff and management of the station.
Months later, when I asked my supervisor further questions, he told me that lightning and thunder so much detest SOUND and LIGHT, and always strike and destroy and source of loud sound or light.
Personally, I observed that lighting do not like to see any other source of light especially at night. Once anyone puts a light especially raw light like burning wood or lamp and expose it to where there is lighting, you will notice a continued flashes and lightening within and around the source of light.
Meanwhile I read a publication about an inventor named Steve LeRoy from Illinois who powered a 60watts light bulb for 20 minutes using energy he captured from lightning. According to him and many other researchers including my humble self, energy or power in lightning is so large and strong that it can power nations. But the biggest problem we currently face is man’s inability to get the power trapped and stored. Surprisingly, no one can predict where and when next a thunder will strike, this fact questions some of the definitions and theories about Mr. Thunder.
But why does lightning fight other sources of light? I keep wondering.
To avoid scaring some people with some of the unanswered questions and scary fact about thunder, may I quickly inform my noble readers that thunder is very friendly to the earth, whenever it strikes, it breaks down large nitrogen particles which the plants cannot absorb into and absorb-able elements and particles whence it nourishes plants thereby making them to yield more crops for human consumption.
Thunder also builds the ozone layer which reduces the intensity of the sun on earth. What a good friend in thunder!
You can read the first part of this work here
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