Texas Storm

A huge storm came right over our building at the University of Texas this afternoon. At one point there was lightning all around us. One bolt seemed to strike the tower. The large crane being used for the construction next door to us was rotating in the wind. The girl who works next to me asked if it was always like this in England!! The traffic was terrible on the way home. The swimming pool was closed so I just had to drive home and tidy my room.

The reason for closing the pool is apparently the 30-30 rule. This states that if the gap between lightning and thunder is less than 30 seconds then you should proceed to a safe place or take appropriate precautions. After the storm passes you should wait 30 minutes before leaving your safe place. Half of all deaths caused by lightning occur after the storm passes.

Everything is bigger in Texas! and we get a lot of these storms, in fact the longest lightning bolt recorded was in Texas at 118 miles in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.

Apparently lightning strikes around 25 million times a year in the USA.

489 people died as a result of lightning strikes in the US between 1995 and 2004, 34 of those in Texas. By my Math(s) I make that around one death per 500,000 strikes to ground.

And what about jolly old England? The region where I used to live, East Anglia, has an average annual rainfall of 605.6mm. Austin, Texas has 828.0mm of rain on average per year. So there, conclusive proof that it is not so rainy in England!

Interestingly, there is thought to be approximately 3,100 cubic miles of water in the atmosphere at any one time. This is equivalent to the volume of Lake Superior (which has the largest surface area of any lake in the World) and if the sky fell on our heads it would leave about one inch of water.

At least I don’t have to worry about watering the tomaytoes tonight.