Thunder & Lightning-What Were You Told As A Kid?

An Riabhach

Having heard what must be one of the loudest crashes of thunder I've ever heard about 2 hours ago-accompanied by a scary enough flash of lightning of course,it reminded me of the stuff I was told as a kid-just so as I wouldn't be scared I suppose.

I remember a teacher in school tellin our class that god was rolling barrels in the sky,another teacher said that god was hungry and his tummy was rumbling loudly.
What Ma told me was that Mother Nature was angry and was throwing pots and pans and making the clouds crash together.
The only thing said about lightning though was the difference between sheet lightning and fork lightning.

So,what stories were ye told by the elders about thunder and lightning when ye were kids?

darkdubh

A fella in primary school with me used to say it was God farting.

vicwatson

God moving furniture around. I mean :rolleyes:

vicwatson

Oh ps - all lightning is forked !!! ☆

gidget

Yeah us kids told each other it was god moving furniture & the rain was someone in heaven having a shower!

mike65

I got God and furniture as well, not that I believed it or that my parents expected me to.

Ruu

God was angry. :eek:

DJango brekfast roll

I remember people saying 'thats God doing...' whatever, in a jokey way, but can never remember believing anything other than 'thats thunder, it goes with lightning'

vicwatson wrote: »

Oh ps - all lightning is forked !!! ☆

i dont know...

ive seen lightning, but ive never seen forked lightning,

gctest50

vicwatson wrote: »

Oh ps - all lightning is forked !!! ☆

even the quality stuff ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWLFVfAfNHs

jill_valentine

STAY AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!

Ps, has anybody ever seen or heard of anybody who was struck by lightning through a window?

An Riabhach

jill_valentine wrote: »

STAY AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!

I remember being told something similar before......

This sounds mad but I'd love to be able to take photos of lightning!!

An Riabhach

I think this is savage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA0ewsrtdMI

An Riabhach

DJango brekfast roll wrote: »

I remember people saying 'thats God doing...' whatever, in a jokey way, but can never remember believing anything other than 'thats thunder, it goes with lightning'

i dont know...

ive seen lightning, but ive never seen forked lightning,

I've never seen fork lightning either but we must get plenty of it....

Seein that sheet lightning flashes strike from cloud to cloud,and fork lightning flashes strike from cloud to ground,hitting power lines and causin power cuts etc.

Anyway just to keep it retro-another story from a kid in my class was that the clouds were bumping into each other because they were so full up with rain,and the lightning would burst them open and make them small clouds again.

paulbok

I could never fathom out my parents during t&l. raced to plug out the telly (and other appliances) but left the aerial connected.
I often pointed out to them that the telly was somewhat protected by the main circuit breaker and a number of fuses whereas the aerial was situated on a metal pole high above the house and directly plugged into the telly.

gobnaitolunacy

Switch off the telly, or it'll explode!

gctest50

paulbok wrote: »

I could never fathom out my parents during t&l. raced to plug out the telly (and other appliances) but left the aerial connected.
I often pointed out to them that the telly was somewhat protected by the main circuit breaker and a number of fuses whereas the aerial was situated on a metal pole high above the house and directly plugged into the telly.

http://www.southernstar.ie/News/Glengarriff-house-gutted-by-lightning-30122013.htm

An Riabhach

gobnaitolunacy wrote: »

Switch off the telly, or it'll explode!

That's what I thought was happenin to mine the other night....=-O

But I did hear a story of somebody's house phone being blown off the wall by the lightning bolt

gobnaitolunacy

Maybe not quite the UL I thought it to be...
http://www.northwichguardian.co.uk/news/weird/10927135.Family_s_TV_explodes_during_lightning_storm/

An Riabhach

^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^

The posts above are effin frightenin.

I never knew any of that could happen-seems like nobody is even safe indoors when fork lightning strikes.

Sarky

"It's clouds banging into eachother. OK enough science, time to draw pictures of Jesus!"

EoghanIRL

jill_valentine wrote: »

STAY AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!

Ps, has anybody ever seen or heard of anybody who was struck by lightning through a window?

Lightning does weird things if it strikes a building. If you have any metal in your window frames or screens, lightning has actually been documented to jump from plumbing pipes to windows on its way to ground, even though the pipe seems the better path.

According to google .

I was always told to say away from the windows too.

Capt'n Midnight

jill_valentine wrote: »

Ps, has anybody ever seen or heard of anybody who was struck by lightning through a window?

Keep away from the taps. Seriously.

paulbok wrote: »

I could never fathom out my parents during t&l. raced to plug out the telly (and other appliances) but left the aerial connected.
I often pointed out to them that the telly was somewhat protected by the main circuit breaker and a number of fuses whereas the aerial was situated on a metal pole high above the house and directly plugged into the telly.

Mains equipment gets fried by near misses anywhere along the powerline back to the substation and beyond.

Direct hit on the aerial , telly is the least of your problems

Max Headroom

The thunder was Gods stomach rumbling with indigestion from all the sinners and bold children................................oh, and protestants....

Tokyo

jill_valentine wrote: »

STAY AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!

This. Was told that the sheet lightning was alright, but the forked lightning would COME IN THE WINDOW AND KILL YOU!!!!!! By the time I did see a fork of lightning out the upstairs window (I was 8 or 9), I think I thanked God for about a day afterwards for the lucky escape from certain death that I just had.

Also, the mad dash round the house to plug out the telly, and later the phones, with the dire warnings that everything in the house was now live and would kill us all.

DJango brekfast roll

DJango brekfast roll wrote: »

I remember people saying 'thats God doing...' whatever, in a jokey way, but can never remember believing anything other than 'thats thunder, it goes with lightning'

Yeah I was just told it was clouds hitting each other. Leaves enough intrigue for a young mind IMO.

SpaceTime

Did we grow up in different centuries or something?

I got the full scientific explanation both from teachers and parents.

We used to work out how far away it was. Learnt all about the speed of sound vs speed of light.

I just thought it was all pretty cool and interesting (and dangerous) rather than something to be frightened of.

Unplugging the telly made sense. Voltage spikes and brownouts could wreck it. Old CRT tellies were probably the only very sensitive piece of expensive equipment most people owned in those days.

These days you should probably plug out a lot more than the telly.

It is more likely that the power might fluctuate then a direct hit to your TV aerial.
You should probably not go near the TV or sat connections if there's a thunder cloud right overhead though.

Tokyo

Quite possibly. My parents seem to run on the theory of "why give them a rational explanation when we can scare the bejesus out of them and make them compliant" - hence the sheds, attic, hot press, etc being full of bogeymen, lightning that could kill at a glance, woods being full of killer badgers etc. Fun times.

An Riabhach

A girl I work with told me that her grandmother used to say that thunder was a football match between heaven and hell,and the lightning was the police car coming to stop them.

Professey Chin

mike_ie wrote: »

Quite possibly. My parents seem to run on the theory of "why give them a rational explanation when we can scare the bejesus out of them and make them compliant" - hence the sheds, attic, hot press, etc being full of bogeymen, lightning that could kill at a glance, woods being full of killer badgers etc. Fun times.

This is definitely what im gonna do. Little feckers will be terrified of their own shadow :pac:

gobnaitolunacy

mike_ie wrote: »

Quite possibly. My parents seem to run on the theory of "why give them a rational explanation when we can scare the bejesus out of them and make them compliant" - hence the sheds, attic, hot press, etc being full of bogeymen, lightning that could kill at a glance, woods being full of killer badgers etc. Fun times.

I was told that my hands would rot and fall off if I robbed bird's nests and shown a small lizard and told it was a baby croc so I wouldn't try swimming in the river.

Aglomerado

We were told "God is angry with all the sinners in the world."
Sometimes I wonder if the New Testament ever reached my home town.

nigelradion2

Seasan wrote: »

Having heard what must be one of the loudest crashes of thunder I've ever heard about 2 hours ago-accompanied by a scary enough flash of lightning of course,it reminded me of the stuff I was told as a kid-just so as I wouldn't be scared I suppose.

I remember a teacher in school tellin our class that god was rolling barrels in the sky,another teacher said that god was hungry and his tummy was rumbling loudly.
What Ma told me was that Mother Nature was angry and was throwing pots and pans and making the clouds crash together.
The only thing said about lightning though was the difference between sheet lightning and fork lightning.

So,what stories were ye told by the elders about thunder and lightning when ye were kids?

Don't stand anywhere near clear glass windows. I've never liked lightning but it IS an awesome sight to see! Don''t mind thunder that much, though.