Weather Imagery

Sometimes you will see homeowners tape their windows with masking or duct tape in preparation for a hurricane. The fact is, tape will do nothing to help preserve your windows, protect your home, or prevent them from shattering. It’s simply a waste of effort and time that could of been spent doing better things preparing for the hurricane’s arrival.

Unlike older windows made of plate glass, modern day windows (or at least as of the last 20 years) are much safer with respect to shattering. Windows today are made with safety glass. The most common type of safety glass is where the glass is coated in clear acrylic or plastic that will hold the pieces together should the window get struck with an object. The glass in effect shatters and remains trapped between the plastic coatings. In addition, the glass breaks into small round pieces that do no have any sharp edges. So applying tape to this type of window does not decrease the chance of sharp fragments being produced nor will increase the strength of the window.

Older homes that still have some of their original windows could be made of plate-glass. These types of windows have no plastic coating and when they break they do create large and very sharp fragments. However, applying tape to these windows will still not increase their strength nor will it reduce the number of fragments produced should the window break. The glass is simply too heavy and will easily break away from the tape.

Plywood, while better than tape, is cheap but only offers marginal protection. It will stop small airborne debris from damaging the windows, increase the likelihood the window will remain intact throughout the storm and help stop the wind and rain from entering your house. But against the fury of the wind, the plywood can act like a sail and must be very well secured.

There are some new products on the market that are also relatively inexpensive. Some of them include wire mesh gates that cover the window and film covers. Although they have been greatly improved upon, they too have their limitations and do not offer the best protection during a hurricane.

The best way to secure your windows during a hurricane is to install specifically designed hurricane shutters. There are many different types, colors, and styles to choose from. Some are motorized and roll down with the push of a button while others have to be manually put in place and removed. In either case, these shutters will provide the best protection against wind and debris generated by a hurricane. Unfortunately, this is by far the most expensive solution that not everyone can afford.

Ironically, by installing hurricane shutters, your homes value will appraise for more which means your property taxes could increase. So the state actually promotes a dis-incentive when you install hurricane shutters. Despite this, the damages that could occur as a result of not having the shutters could well exceed any increase in your property tax.

Other Hurricane Postings

• Riding Out a Hurricane
• Hurricane Intensity Scale

A popular myth is that lightning cannot strike the same place twice, but nothing could be further from the truth. Lightning does, can and will strike the same exact place more than once. It doesn’t have a memory, and if an object has been struck once, it is no less likely to be struck a second time. If you don’t believe me, just ask some of the employees at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The shuttle launch pad gets hit time and time again, sometimes more than once in the same storm. How about the Empire State Building in New York city which gets struck by lightning about 25 times each year. Even Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning 7 times!

The truth of it is, lightning is simply trying to balance a charge separation; positive and negative. Very tall objects such as skyscrapers, mountains and radio towers are more likely to be struck because they narrow the gap between the charge separation of the ground below and the oppositely charge cloud above. When the charge builds up enough to overcome the resistance of the air, the opposite charge will rush upwards along the structure more easily than through the air and as a result the gap between the two charges is lessened increasing the chance of a strike.

The fact is, objects closer to the ground play a much smaller role in determining what a lightning bolt is going to strike because lightning doesn’t know what it’s going to make contact with until the last 50 to 100 feet. That is to say, lightning doesn’t know at 50,000 feet that its going to strike your neighbors satellite dish. Lightning zig-zags down to the ground by forming “step-leaders”, re-evaluating at each step where it’s going next. Sometimes left, sometimes right, sometimes down, sometimes up. Once the step-leader approaches a grounded object, a “streamer” composed of the opposite charge shoots upwards. One can shoot up from a telephone pole, a tree, a car or all three simultaneously. Whichever streamer connects with the descending step leader first will complete the circuit and trigger a mass rush of electricity creating a lightning bolt. But the taller object might not be the closest target and it might not throw up as tall a streamer. The tallest object may be just a 100 feet further away than a shorter one and the shorter one will get hit because its streamer made contact with the step leader first.

While watching a thunderstorm, you might have noticed lightning sometimes looks like it’s pulsating or flashing several times very quickly. Sometimes all the charge doesn’t dissipate in one flash over. The electric current will pulse down the channel hitting the same place several times in quick succession. In essence, lightning is hitting the same place many times in a row in a very short amount of time.

But just because an object is hit once, doesn’t not make it immune from being struck again. If a storm is in the area, an object has the same probability of being hit a second time.

Other Lightning Myths

• Can Lightning Crash an Airplane?
• Do Lightning Rods Attract Lightning?
• Can Lightning Be Used As a Source of Power?
• Is Ball Lightning Real?
• Do Car Tires Protect Me From Lightning?
• Can Lightning Strike Me Inside My House?