Detecting lightning automatically isn't that hard-- it's a sudden burst of powerful, wideband static. There are several sites where users collaboratively trilaterate lighting strikes by sharing precise time-of-arrival data-- including live maps! http://en.blitzortung.org/live_dynamic_maps.php?map=11

The process is fast enough that in a thunderstorm, you'll probably get a packet specifying the lightning's coordinates before you hear the thunder!

Here's what the storm looked like: http://i.imgur.com/mkIqnlD.gif

> en.blitzortung.org

Turn on the visualisation for 'Detectors' to see which reporting stations provided data for each strike.

Looks really cool!

You do, and on lightningmaps.org you can even watch on the map the thunder front traveling at the speed of sound. Disappointingly, though, it appears that the lightnings positioning isn't reliable enough to actually predict when you'll be reached by the thunder, let alone go out there and look for a nice piece of fulgurite!

Do what the guy does in Sweet Home Alabama: go off into the wilderness, put up some big metal rods, and after a thunderstorm check the rods for lightning strikes.

Or go build your own lightning field like Walter de Maria

https://artappreciation101.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/demar...

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2...

Of which there is a great description if Geoff Dyer's latest book White Sands.

Is that actually the thunder front travelling at the speed of sound? My understanding of how Blitzortung works (and similar sites like Lightningmaps.org) is that animation was just a visual cue to draw the eye rather than trying to replicate the time between a strike and the sound.

On lightningmaps.org yes, you can see the thunder front (if you zoom close enough).

Very interesting! Thanks for pointing that out!

I can remember a similar event in the Alps in France. What was interesting (it was with cows) is that only the cows showing or turning their back to the lightning strike were killed.

It was because of the potential difference between the front and back legs (you have more than 1m), the ground resistance was higher than the wet cow and the current just went through the cow. When the cows were not facing (or back) the strike, the ground resistance was lower, the current did not went through the cows.

So, if you are wet, in the mountains and lightning strikes are firing, make small steps :)

this is a basic advice on any electrical course I had to go through. if things get really hairy, you should only jump around with both feet together, and have arms close to the body (not so easy somewhere on the wilderness)

Actually you hop on one foot, that way the current path does not go fully across your heart.

Not quite. It is the voltage potential caused by having your feet on two different pieces of ground, which have a voltage gradient between them, that causes the current to flow. If you keep your feet together you are less likely to be harmed.

The farther apart your feet are the greater the voltage between them. This is called "step potential" in electrician and lineman safety training.

Yes, but if are hopping on one foot, you have no opportunity to complete the circuit with both feet.

but if your feet are touching it's the same thing, because you've shorted the circuit. Also, any chance of arcing to the ungrounded leg?

Where do you get this idea?

When lighting is kilometers long, half a meter more is not a lot to cover.

Step potential: http://www.esgroundingsolutions.com/what-is-step-and-touch-p...

Given the chance to outrun lightning, running with only zero or one feet on the ground would also prevent strikes.

That was curiously both creepy and enlightening (so to speak ;-).

I'm probably a terrible person for this, but my first thought was: http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/attachments/104/60/63503...

"They were standing on a hill, moving up that hill."

Bad idea in a thunderstorm. It is recommended to stay in low-lying areas instead: http://www.wildbackpacker.com/wilderness-survival/articles/s...

Technically true but teaching that to reindeer may be something of a challenge :)

They just learned by natural selection :)

IANAB, but lately i have been thinking a lot about evolution and how it changes a species. The context i am considering is social evolution, but i think the rules of biological evolution apply. From what i understand, Reindeer have learned nothing from the event in general. In the localized area, a bunch of Reindeer are out of the gene pool and any of their kin that are close enough to encounter their carcasses but not the the cause are going to freely associate the deaths with whatever the perception sensory suite allows. My assertion: Evolutionary "learning" occurs over a long period of time through strings of events with similar inputs and outputs.

Not an argument or rebuttal; your comment made me think about it. :]

Nah, I was just kidding. Unless there are similar events occurring during a lot of time, making those reindeers that prefer staying more separated and in lower areas have a significant advantage, and these preferences are hereditary...

I don't think there's anything wrong with refutations of pop-science. Thanks for posting.

Wait a second. Anyone else see the 'The Tick' pilot? Wasn't this the opening sequence, Superion falling to earth and killing a bunch of reindeer?

That aside, this must have been one heck of a lightning bolt. I've been within few meters of one with no ill effect. It must have been nothing compared to this monster. Or could it have been several bolts?

An recently, in July: 1500 reindeer dead, 40 humans hospitalized amid anthrax outbreak in Siberia - https://news.vice.com/article/reindeer-dead-humans-hospitali...

Not to sound to heartless but I wonder if the animals will be taken for meat, buried, or nothing done at all (ie left for nature). What normally happens in these situations?

Literally the last sentence in the article:

> "The normal routine in such cases is to let nature take its course."

How embarrassing! I must have coalesced that last paragraph with the advertisement and missed it.

Nothing really can be done for the meat. Meat needs to be allowed to cool, rapidly, or it spoils. That's why field dressing deer is so important. You remove the guts and core of the animal to lower the temperature of the meat as quickly as possible. So if the meat has been sitting for even half a day it's long gone.

I had the same thought at first. Weirdly, I'm more curious if this was a herd that someone laid claim to or the more wild sort of reindeer. Mostly because if it is a persons or group's herd, they just lost a good amount of meat and income.

I wonder if this ever happened to ancient armies

Music in the video really ties it together, but they really should've dropped the bass when switching to the aerial footage.

I can't shake the feel that the thunderstorms have gotten stronger in recent years.

From the HN Guidelines:

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

This is why I come to HN. There are a lot of websites out there that gratify one's intellectual curiosity, but none with the same "human filter" and comment quality.

Because who knew lightning could kill 300 reindeer at once?

Now that it's happened and we've observed it, it makes me wonder how many times such an event has happened throughout history and how improbable it actually is. I've only ever thought about lightning killing a single creature until just now.

or maybe they were in a cult.

I'd say this falls within "science".

I think the discussion is what separates HN from the mainstream news sources. That is where ideas get "hacky" IMHO.