Lightning fascinates, but at the same time it terrifies. They can take nice photos, but if you’re outdoors, lightning can be dangerous. In folk tales, St. Elijah runs through clouds, thunder, and lightning and strikes demons with his fiery whip. But what does science say about lightning and thunder? Where are the most dangerous regions for Romanians? How many people die each year? How is lightning formed?

Thunder vs. lightning – how are they different?

Although they are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a significant difference between lightning and lightning, even though both are atmospheric electrical discharges. Only lightning reaches the Earth, and lightning only at a high altitude, so saying that a person was “struck by lightning” is wrong, but “struck by lightning” or “struck by lightning” is correct.

Lightning is an electrical discharge in the atmosphere, of the same type as lightning, but which occurs between a cloud and the ground or objects on the ground and is accompanied by a loud noise. Lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon that consists of a light electrical discharge that occurs between two clouds or within a cloud.

The region of Romania with the highest number of people struck by lightning

The Oltenia region has the highest number of lightning strikes in Romania, if we take into account the populated areas, while there are even more in the highlands.

“This area of ​​Oltenia has the highest emissions, the highest impact, and the highest number of victims. The explanation may be that a significant part of the population lives in rural areas and goes out and works more outdoors,” Bohdan Antonescu, an expert in the analysis of extreme weather phenomena, explains to HotNews.ro.

People who were trapped outdoors without shelter, as well as people who went under trees or were beaten while talking on the phone, were injured. In the city during a thunderstorm, it is much safer because there are places to hide and buildings are equipped with lightning rods.

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The worst case ever produced in the world was in December 1975 in the Manica Tribal Trust Lands region of Zimbabwe. The cabin was struck by lightning, and 21 people died. This case is well documented and entered in the Book of Records in the category “World: highest death due to a single direct lightning”.

If you are caught in a thunderstorm outdoors, you should reduce the area of ​​your body as much as possible, and lying on the ground is not recommended at all. You have to somehow sit down so as to reduce your height, but at the same time have as little contact with the ground as possible.

Research shows that Romania has the third highest lightning death rate in Europe, followed by Bulgaria and Moldova. Between 2001 and 2020, 112 lightning victims were registered in Romania, so we are talking about an average of 5-6 victims per year. However, NU research shows that these three countries have more lightning on average than other regions of Europe.

In the US, programs are often held to educate the public about what to do in the event of a storm and how to take shelter from possible lightning. There aren’t many “farmers” working the land “by hand” in the US, but people do have a lot of fun outdoors, like picnicking or (playing) golf.

In general, the number of people killed by lightning in the West has decreased because there are fewer outdoor jobs than a few decades ago, and in cities that have expanded, you have places to go to be safe.

We don’t know everything about lightning

Interestingly, we do not know for sure how lightning is formed, but the most common theory concerns the mechanism, which is the interaction between ice crystals of different sizes that are in the cloud.

“There is a generally accepted theory, but it does not give us the full picture. We know very clearly that any thunderstorm that produces electrical discharges must have ice crystals, solid particles, inside it. Without ice, electric charges cannot occur in clouds. The theory is 90% known, laboratory tests were also carried out (…) We know that there must be small ice crystals and large ice crystals that interact with each other,” explains physicist Bohdan Antonescu.

The height at which discharges occur depends on the type of clouds, because they must contain not only ice particles, but also crystals in a liquid state. Some can occur below 2000m, others even above 4000m. It varies from one storm to another.

From our analysis, we know that these clouds that create electrical discharges have a small area of ​​positive charges at the bottom, a very large area of ​​negative charges, and another area of ​​positive charges at the top of the cloud.

Why is it important to study lightning? Because it’s a way to monitor what’s happening with storms in a particular region, especially because lightning can cause casualties and damage property. Electric discharges were registered at weather stations, some weather stations also had “lightning meters” and counted lightning strikes around the station. Now. loading can be measured in more detail.

There aren’t enough studies to say whether the number of lightning has increased or decreased compared to certain periods in the past, and studies of how the phenomenon might have evolved are conflicting.

There are studies related to electrical activity, and some say that due to the increase in global average temperature we will have more storms and more lightning, while other more recent studies in Europe indicate more storms, but NOT more electrical activity, Bohdan explains Antonescu

Lightning is defined as an electrical discharge between a cloud and the ground, between two clouds, or between two parts of the same cloud.

Thunder is the noise created by the sudden expansion and contraction of air in the channel of the lightning discharge.

Saint Ilya, a “specialist” of extreme phenomena in the folk tradition

There are many lightning-fast superstitions in popular ideas. “Whoever is killed by lightning, all sins are forgiven and he goes to heaven,” Arthur Horovey wrote more than 100 years ago in a great book about beliefs and superstitions. “Wood that has been touched by lightning is not suitable for use in buildings, and especially in houses,” it is also said.

Saint Elijah is a symbol of extreme phenomena, and in folk tradition he causes fires in hot summers, generates thunder, lightning and lightning during thunderstorms, binds and unbinds the rains, decides where and when the hail will fall. According to the Christian-Orthodox calendar, July 20 is the Saint’s day.

“As a secular character, Santilius appears in folk traditions as a warrior, hunter, farmer, animal breeder, and cattle trader. Tempted or tricked by the devil, Santillier kills one or more of his family members. Sins are atoned for in several ways, God forgives him and transfers him to the saints and raises him to heaven in a chariot with fiery wheels drawn by two or four white winged horses,” writes Ion Ginoiu in “Calendar Romania”. Peasant”.

On that chariot, the saint runs between clouds, thunder, and lightning and strikes the devils with a fiery whip. Traditions said that demons, frightened by Saint Ilya, hide in various places on earth: in trees, under the roofs of houses, even on church towers. Sântilie, because he does not want any hell to escape from him, also smashes trees, and houses, and cattle, and churches.

“Romanians believe that Saint Ilia has an order, he has an order to beat the devil wherever he hides. In the tower of the church, where he is hiding, Saint Ilya, a kind of hot-tempered, enters the tower to save the devil,” writes G. F. Chausanu in the book “Superstitions of the Romanian People”.

Lightning, thunder and magic stone

“People, not knowing the means by which lightning acts on things and beings on earth, have imagined that the thing which destroys everything in its path must be an arrow shot from the clouds. It was natural for them to think like this: they were hunters and hunted and punished opponents with arrows,” writes G. Chaushanu.

Others believed that stones fall with lightning. And all of them were looking for, digging in the ground these arrows or stones of the terrible god,” writes Gh F Ciauşanu in “Superstitions of the Romanian People”.

It is said that near Tekuchi, villagers sometimes found black flint arrowheads after threshing, which, in their opinion, were the remains of lightning that had struck there.

“They say that there is nowhere for a person to stay when it thunders and thunders (…) But even the wicked saint thunders, because they do unclean things. That is why they say in the village to the one who utters curses: “May you have a holy thunder!” (Chaushan). When he fell on something, they said that “this is an unclean thing” and that the Unclean One was hiding there, but the saint still found him.

Several peoples, including the Germans and Danes, had beliefs about the thunderstone and that it penetrated deep into the earth, but rose little by little every year to eventually reach the surface. It was believed that these stones had magical properties and were worn as amulets.

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