Looking at pictures of thunderstorms over the sea and lightning striking directly into the water, one would think that there would be nothing left alive in the area. Isn't it possible that someday a few big storms could wipe out all the fish in some region?
Of course, a lightning strike in a sea or lake is not without consequences for the organisms living in the water, but its effects are not as devastating as they might initially seem, given the dangerous relationship of water+electricity.
Let's take a look at the map of lightning distribution around the planet, created by NASA in 2003 after nearly a decade of satellite observations of thunderstorms. At first glance, the report created in 2003 may seem rather old, but the averages remain pretty much the same every year.
You can see that the number of lightning on land is dozens of times greater than in the seas and oceans, so the appearance of lightning over oceans and seas can be considered a fairly rare phenomenon. But when it does happen, are fish in the path of the electrical discharge really threatened with death?
Only if they are near the surface. Unlike air, sea water is an excellent conductor of electricity, and when lightning strikes it does not move in a narrow line as in the sky, but is evenly distributed in all directions in the form of an expanding lower hemisphere. Only the beginning of this hemisphere is considered as a dangerous zone and fish located near the surface will really die when lightning strikes the water. Those fish that are at least a few meters deep from the surface, though they will feel the electric shock, but most likely will stay alive. Sea inhabitants swimming even deeper may feel safe even during the strongest thunderstorm. So there can be no total death of fish from the surface of the reservoir to its bottom during a lightning strike.
You must be logged in to post a comment.