Why are there so many lightning strikes?
 

We moved to The Villages on June 11th. Since moving here there have been many direct lightning strikes to homes, several with severe damage. Never in my life have I lived in a place with so many strikes. Is there a way to prevent or reduce our home's chance of being struck?

We moved here from Southern Florida, where the storms are extremely intense and still this is very different.

See today's posts for Intense lightning storm 2024-7-20 for more information. Also see the poa4us.org web site and select the Bulletin Tab for the July issue and page 14 for an article on the lightning issues we face living here in the Lightning Capital of the USA.

Thank you! I finally found the thread but I don't see much in the way of mitigating risk.

We have three companies coming out to give an estimate on a lightning rod system but does this safeguard your home completely?

I've never in my life been afraid of storms but I do find my anxiety level increasing with every storm.

Do a search of this forum for LIGHTNING STRIKES. There is a long thread started on 6/24 with lots of info.

As noted above there are several threads on this subject. Lightning protection Systems, these tend to provide some protection for direct strike, then there are the surge protection which is very useful for the close in strikes. We have the surge protection but not the LPS.

Village Tinker gave you a good answer.

When my husband and I moved to Florida in 96' I was afraid of the frequent and intense lightening storms. If it is any comfort to you over time I've gotten used to them and they don't scare me. That isn't to say there isn't danger during a lightening storm but over time I became accustomed to it. It took a long time but now I sleep through a lightening storm and believe I sleep a bit better for some reason.

& this guy is an electrical engineer.

:boom:

Wonder what the answer to your question as to why?

I do not understand 5 homes in the villages burned this year due to lightning strikes, imagine a lot more suffered damages from lightning.

My guess: More active storm season this year combined with dense housing development. There is more lightning and it is going to hit somewhere. With houses blanketing a large portion of the area, the chances are high that it will hit a house.

Two years ago we had regular afternoon thunderstorms. Last year we had few. This year they seem to be more active.

Parts of Florida have that “lightning capital” title. OP probably should have due diligence on weather here.

Of course it’s no different than coming from tornado alley, wildfires, or flood zones.

Since we can’t change the weather, we look at a possible strike or any other weather related issue as a remake or upgrade to house.

We've averaged 6-8 that I'm aware of a year the past 5 yrs.

I have a suspicion (and some evidence) metallic gas lines in the attic increase the risk of fire.

We got our rods from A1 Lightning Protection. Danny is great. Takes the time to explain the code and what they do. Also got whole house surge protection from Pikes electric.

As for "why so many" see this article.

Seeing 4, 5, 6 homes in The Villages per year being struck, and some totally lost to fire, we bought a Lightning Protection System and whole house surge protection a few years ago. While typical homeowners insurance covers damage, it's the inconvenience of losing possessions and living elsewhere for the year or two it takes to rebuild the home that makes it easy to justify.

The Lightning Protection System, a network of 6 or 7 lightning rods on the typical home, will divert a direct strike from your roof to the ground. The surge protection is used to protect from the ground surge of electricity that happens when lightning hits the ground nearby, nextdoor, or a few houses away. I like the belt + suspenders approach of having both.

There are two fully certified firms that install lightning protection in The Villages. Both have good reputations (and long backlogs). Don't use just any electrician for this work, use properly certified people.

A1 lightning Protection
352-465-0620

Triangle Lightning Protection
352-483-7020

If you want a better sense of the activity, download the "My Lightning Tracker" app to your phone and watch it during any of our summer afternoon storms.

P.S. I am not financially involved with either of these firms, but am a pleased customer of A1.

Nothing gives you full protection. Lighting rods give you and additional layer of protection.

We do not have LPS but whenever the Lightning app on my iPhone tells me lightning is in the vicinity, we unplug all of our sensitive equipment (computers, printers, modems - both power & coaxial cable, etc.). Hopefully the expensive items in the house will not suffer damage due to an electrical surge from a near strike. Before folks chime in, we do not pull refrigerator plugs and other large appliances simply because of the effort to pull them out from the wall. We roll the dice on those items.