Lightning

[two lunches]

Reading this thread brings up a question I've always wanted to ask on this forum - as someone who lives in Texas and has minimal experience with higher elevations is there any way to tell, or estimate, if any given cloud cover might be a lightening risk?

If the way I'm phrasing this doesn't make sense - a few years ago I had driven up to Telluride for some car camping and day hiking. My first day a big rainstorm hit - 100% cloud cover, off-and-on rain, windy. I decided to forgo any hiking as I didn't want to risk anything (I wound up driving to Utah to visit family instead) but have always wondered if ANY clouds, or any rainy weather in general, can suddenly produce lightening? Or are there times where you feel safe going up to elevation in cloudy or rainy conditions because you can tell from experience that the weather conditions won't necessarily lead to lightening-producing thunderheads?

man... there is a lot of personal risk assessment involved with this question. a few thoughts-

technically, no. not all clouds can cause lighting. only clouds with strong vertical development are capable of generating lightning. you’re looking for cumulonimbus- the tall Toy Story clouds with dark, flat bottoms and anvil-shaped tops.

the day you're talking about sounds like it was stable: uniform gray sky all morning without vertical growth paired with cool temps typically indicates stable air/low lightning risk.

but while not all cloudy or rainy weather will result in lightning, it's the potential for atmospheric instability that makes going out risky- so let's revisit personal risk assessment: unlike texas, colorado's mountains are notorious for creating their own weather. storms don't always approach from a distance, they can build right over your head or an adjacent ridge before you even realize it. and i'd wager a guess that at least 85% of the people in this forum have experienced a storm that has built quickly (30 minutes or less) and resulted in a mad dash to get below treeline or take cover along a ridge or in a rock outcropping.

anecdotally i've found that when it's raining at 3, 4, 5am, that's a sign the atmostphere is already unstable. our typical monsoon storms tend to build late morning, peak early afternoon, and dissipate by early evening. so when precip starts before sunrise, it's often part of a larger, all-day system. i wouldn't say that means it's guaranteed to storm all day, but it's a safe bet that you're going to experience either rain all day or you get intermittent clearing in the absence of a significant "weather window"

one expression that gets tossed around a lot is "you never know until you go." there are exceptions to nearly all my comments and that's just kind of part of the game.

[Gandalf69]

I too have had close calls with lightning. One time, in boy scouts, a storm rolled in on mt massive as we approached the saddle. I saw electrical discharges from a scoutmaster's trekking polls, and from their keys as they took them out of their pocket. We could hear rocks shattering around us from the closer strikes. I've seen lighting on Bierstadt about 10 yards away, that was crazy as well. I was on the summit of Capitol, and we heard thunder and saw lightning on Snowmass nearby, but still not a good feeling. Lightning can strike from up to 20 miles away, the so called "strike out of the blue". Lightning is also 5x hotter than the surface of the sun, and it CAN strike twice. Lightning actually comes from the ground up to the sky, and the electrical charges meet halfway. It happens so fast that we perceive it was hitting the ground. You should definitely not fear every cloud, but at the same time, you never know from the ground if the storm is strong enough to produce lightning until the first strike occurs. I have seen it in the snow, which is wild as well. "Thundersnow" it's called. If you have any doubt, it's much better to turn around, then to get stuck above tree line.



watch this if you doubt the power of lightning

[Kiefer]

I'm with Jorts on this one. I will never understand how people can be so dismissive and laissez-faire about weather (and lightning). When the clouds start to build (those pesky cumulonimbus that Two Lunches mentioned), I start to watch the skies more than where I'm going.
When I worked at Purgatory, in the summer if lightning was detected at 5 miles, resort operations were put on notice. Inside 5 miles, we shut everything down. The grumbling from tourists showed how much people don't understand what lightning can do or how far it can travel.

A good friend was on the backside of Cheyenne Mountain racing through the forest to get down from an incoming storm MANY years ago. A bolt hit in the vicinity and like Joseph Nephi said, the potential gradient literally knocked him off his feet. He survived, but has severe foot problems to this day that prevents him from skiing and limits him how far he can hike.

My first summit of Crestone Needle, I was on the summit in a thunderstorm (against better judgement). The thunder from the summit sounded like I had two aluminum cans up to my ears. It was weird & a little unnerving. Every time I moved, the air crackled like crumpled up wax paper. I threw my pack down the gully not really caring if I ever got it back I was so scared. My first lesson.
In August, I was near Capitol's summit (first ascent) and got caught in a thunder snowstorm. Probably 2"-3" of snow on the ledges and ridge. As I was climbing, my eyebrows & cheeks suddenly tingled. I threw myself into the snowy rock as fast as I could and the flash/thunder was IMMEDIATE. I'm glad I still have my hearing. I still summited even though I probably shouldn't have. Second & last lesson.

We all do stupid sh*t. Part of learning, right? Just as long as we don't repeat any of it. If you don't learn, eventually, you're gonna roll a 7 and crap out.

[Matt]

While lightning is more likely where things are pointy (it increases the local electric field), it can still strike anywhere. The thing that people don't think about enough is the fact that the currents and voltages are so high that the potential gradient radiating outward from the lightning strike is so steep that the voltage difference between your feet can (and will) still kill you. The lightning doesn't have to hit you, just hit close enough to do real damage.

I can confirm with two incidents. We were atop the summit of Mt. Zirkel, lounging with a few locals. A storm came out of nowhere. Locals shrugged. Um, no. We ran for the basin across the long tundra plateau. My trekking poles started to vibrate. BANG! Next thing I knew, I was on the ground and my right ear felt like it was full of electric cotton. Could not hear out of it until the TH, nine miles away.

As a noob, I did Mt. Taylor outside Albuquerque. The route goes through an open cow pasture and never gets above treeline. I summited and saw a storm on the backside, not far. A boom of thunder sent me running down through the cattle. Still at about 10k, I saw a bolt hit the ground about 1/4 mile below me. Cattle went down like flies in about a 100 yard radius. I was lucky.

[nyker]

Sometimes you do all the right things and sh*t still happens.

We were on Bierstadt summit around 7:15am July several years ago. Bluebird skies, clear forecast. As we were sitting in the direction of the Sawtooth, we were not watching what was brewing behind us in the sky; within 15min while we were eating breakfast, skies turned scary dark. We immediately packed up and less than 5min later as we were rapidly descending, a guy next to us had his hair start standing up, then happened to a second person. We threw our aluminum hiking poles down the hill in front of us (nobody within range or fear of getting hit) and started running. While running a dozen bolts hit the slopes. It was among the more scared I've been on a mountain. Later that day we learned two people were hit by lightning around Aspen that same day in the afternoon.

[auddupree]

As someone fairly new to climbing big mountains, I learned many lessons the hard way as well this past summer. While climbing the SE ridge of Columbia, big dark cumulonimbus clouds were building to the east and north of us. With the summit in view and thinking those clouds were pushing away from us, we kept moving forward. After 30 minutes or so, we were on the summit ridge when everything to the west of us turned dark. There wasn't any thunder or lightning, and the clouds were spread-out dark cumulus clouds, not anvils. There were snow flurries but nothing more. We stopped to discuss whether to turn around when a member of our group's lightning alarm went off on his Garmin. We immediately turned around and within a minute, our poles started crackling. We ran. I was holding both poles in my hand and got zapped. I picked them up and kept running. Not long thereafter, I got zapped again and threw them down the mountain. We had a decent-sized group and every one of us but one ditched our poles at some point. We high-tailed it down the ridge just south of the standard trail, running through a wave of graupel at one point. Running down a steep, wet mountainside waiting for the flash with a clap of thunder is an experience I'd like not to repeat. Other than some twisted ankles, bruises, blisters, and scrapes, we made it out unscathed. We got lucky it never thundered. I was pretty shook the next day, and I spent it researching overall risk management and lightning in the mountains. I realized how ignorant I was about the potential risks of these big hikes.

In September, two of us hiked Longs. We kept close tabs on the forecast leading up to that day, and when we set off around 04:00 a.m. the forecast called for a front with weather to move through around 06:00 p.m. We summited around 10:00 a.m., and the weather was calm and clear with a few lazy, whispy clouds here and there. We checked the forecast and it hadn't changed. When we reached the Keyhole around noon and could see around us, we learned of an isolated storm to the north moving northeast beating up the mountains. But above us and around us, it was clear skies with sun. Regardless, I had learned my lesson and knew we had to get off the mountain. We made it back to the trailhead as quickly as we could without stopping, arriving around 03:00 p.m. By then, it was dark all around us and rumbling behind the peak. When we pulled out of the parking lot fifteen minutes later, it was pouring rain with constant thunder that didn't let up until we reached Lyons. If we hadn't hiked/ran back as quickly as we could, we would've been caught in it.

[dstonebass]

one expression that gets tossed around a lot is "you never know until you go." there are exceptions to nearly all my comments and that's just kind of part of the game.

First, thanks for the reply (and Cottonmountaineering as well).

Second, I'm 46 years old with a college degree...and in looking over my original post I realized I completely misspelled "lightning".

I guess that was the crux of my question - in between clear sunny skies on one side and obvious thunder/lightning storms on the other, how do you judge the degree of risk.

The last time I was able to make it up to Colorado I was camping outside Buena Vista. My first hike was either Lost Lake or Ptarmigan Lake trail (I forget which) and while the weather was perfect on the way up by the time I got to where the treeline started phasing out there were some big thunderheads approaching. I turned around (I hadn't planned on going any farther anyway) along with just about everyone else and made it back to my car before it started raining, although I could hear thunder. Funny thing was, as I was turning around you could see a group of people continuing up an exposed ridgeline off in the distance. There were a few people around me who were commenting how not-a-good-idea that was; someone mentioned having seen a big van in the trail lot with Texas plates, and someone else said "yep, you can always tell who the Texans are at a time like this."

The next day I hiked Mt. Yale. It was overcast but no wind or rain. I made it up just fine and never saw or heard anything, but a couple who I met on the trail had decided to turn around. They said the day before (same day as above) they got caught up high on Pike's Peak and had to shelter in some big rocks and it scared the **** out of them.

[mtree]

I guess that was the crux of my question - in between clear sunny skies on one side and obvious thunder/lightning storms on the other, how do you judge the degree of risk.

More importantly, what are you willing to wager?