Woman Survived an Ominous "Hair-Raising" Day at the Beach

On July 4, 2021, Karyn Sandiford and her friends enjoyed a beautiful sunny day at the beach in Lytham St. Annes, United Kingdom, when ominous clouds began to form. Sandiford and her friends felt a tingling feeling of static electricity on their arms before hearing thunder, and Sandiford's hair began to stand on end.

Shocking Beach Visit

In the three-second video that went viral on social media, she joked, "Bit of static on the beach." Then, following the rain and thunder, the companions made the long journey back to their vehicles on the beach.

When she got home, she looked up similar incidents and discovered she'd had a near encounter with one of nature's most deadly murderers.

Ion Charging

Negative ions from a cloud reach down toward the Earth milliseconds before a lightning strike, causing a positive charge to rise up from numerous locations on the ground, usually metal items or high points. "Positive streamers" are what they're called.

If the negative ions coming down from the cloud, known as "stepped leaders," can't find a way to link up with a positive streamer, they halt and shift course. This process can occur 10,000 times in a single 20th of a second until a link is formed, and it was just recently captured on film by ultra-high-speed cameras. The lightning strike happens once a channel has been created, with positive ions traveling along the channel multiple times in quick succession.

Lightning

Even if the lightning connects over a separate channel, humans can be hurt when functioning as a positive streamer in scarce circumstances. Positive streamers may be recorded on film using long-exposure photos in rare instances.

According to meteorologists, Sandiford was thought to be part of a seldom reported field of static charge built up before the formation of positive streamers.

Strike Data

Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist with Vaisala, a Finnish business that records worldwide lightning strikes and other meteorological data, said of the occurrence, "There is a lot of electric charge in the atmosphere when things like this happen... These aren't really upward streamers, as such happen as the stepped leader approaches the Earth."

Sandiford recounted the start of the static in an interview with AccuWeather. "For the first, sort of, a handful of minutes, it was fascinating. But, as we understood, 'Actually, this is an electrical storm, I believe we should really get off the beach,' we made a hasty exit "she stated, "We were surrounded by water, so I truly don't think I'd be sitting here right now if it had struck."

Meteorologists are baffled as to why static is such an uncommon occurrence, given how frequently individuals are struck by lightning without warning.

According to John Jensenius, a former meteorologist who worked for NOAA as a lightning safety specialist, "That is a subject I don't believe we have an answer to. But, it's definitely linked to the electrical charge intensity in the air and the induced charge on the ground."

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