Frequently Asked Questions

Answer - At any given moment, there are some 1,800 active electrical storms throughout the world, producing 100 lightning flashes per second, or about 8,000,000 lightning flashes per day.  For the past 200 years, lightning protection has been centered around the traditional lightning rod. The lightning rod has come to represent lightning protection. But, what about damage caused by other than a direct strike?

Older technology based on vacuum tubes and mechanical relays was, by its nature, relatively less affected by lightning. However, advances in technology have brought the proliferation of microprocessors. And, with the move to digital systems and faster components, transients, of which lightning is the most dramatic, have and will continue to become more of a factor in component reliability and longevity.

You cannot make electricity travel faster.  Therefore, if you want to make an electronic device operate faster, you have to make the distances it travels shorter. Smaller distances entail lower arc-over voltages.  Therefore, the faster the device, the more susceptible it is to lightning and other transients.  And, as equipment becomes faster, the problem will become worse.

Answer - Electrical storms and lightning are a year-round phenomenon. The ingredients necessary for the formation of a thunderstorm are:

Although they are more likely to be present during the traditional thunderstorm season, these ingredients can occur any time of year. Indeed, one of nature's most awesome phenomena is lightning in a snowstorm.

Answer - Lightning rods have been perceived to provide protection from the damage caused by lightning for over 200 years. However, it is important to remember that the purpose of a lightning rod system is to prevent physical damage and to keep the protected structure from burning down. That is why lightning rod systems are covered by National Fire Protection Association standards. All we were concerned about was keeping the barn from burning down. Lightning would strike the lightning rod and be conveyed by the conductor system ground, and the barn would not catch fire.

However, now we have structures with lightning rod systems which contain microprocessor-based equipment. Lightning still strikes the lightning rod and is conveyed to ground, and the structure still does not burn down.

However, now none of the computers work after the strike. That is because, although lightning rod systems are relatively effective at conducting the discharge current and the associated heat away from and around the protected structure to ground, there are other types of damage from a lightning strike; secondary effect damage, damage caused by currents induced by the electromagnetic field effect, and damage caused by changes in ground potential across a site.

While the lightning rod prevents most physical damage, it cannot mitigate these types of damage.

Answer - The streamer-influencing properties of an air terminal do not have any effect on the cloud charge, as some academics claim they must.  The emitted ions never reach the storm cloud, but are blown away downwind.  A streamer-delaying air terminal merely delays the formation of streamers from the protected object.

Answer - A streamer-delaying air terminal does not have to reduce the cloud charge, or even the ground charge to zero.  It must only reduce the charge on the protected structure a very small fraction.  More accurately, it must only control the release of ground charge during the instant immediately proceeding the lightning strike, preventing the ground charge from forming a mature streamer.