10 Lightning Facts Every Oil & Gas Employee Should Know

June 26, 2018

Here at Petro Guardian, we’re obsessed with the idea of helping our partners protect their assets and employees from lightning.

Here are some quick tips everyone working in the oil & gas industry should know.

Lightning is more common during the hot Summer months. 2/3 of all lightning over land occurs during the months of June, July, and August.
You are more likely to see lightning strikes in the afternoons. About 2/3 of all lightning strikes happen between 4:00 – 6:00 PM local time.
The temperature of lightning is about 53,500 °F! That’s hotter than the surface of the sun, which clocks in at 10,300 °F.
It takes 5 seconds for sound to travel 1 mile. If you count the number of seconds between when you see lightning and hear thunder, you should be able to roughly estimate how close the strike is to you.
Direct hits are the least common way to be killed or injured by lightning! Ground current caused by a lightning strike accounts for 40-50% of injuries.
If you are stuck outdoors during thunderstorms, Rubber-soled shoes WILL NOT save you from a lightning strike! It’s not the shoes that will help… it’s the distance from the strike. The strike step voltage decreases with distance. Put your feet together, squat down with your elbows on your knees and palms locked above your head pushing it towards the ground.
Oil-producing areas, like Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico have some of the highest rates of lightning density in the entire world.
Lightning CAN strike the same place twice. Man-made structures are more likely to be repeatedly struck by lightning.
The farthest recorded horizontal distance of a lightning strike was 200 miles.
There are an average of 20 million cloud-to-ground flashes over the contiguous 48 states every year.