‘Lightning a potential killer’

An official at the Dubai Meteorological Office said lightning was not indicative of the rainy season. Moreover, "it is mostly mild and not accompanied by thunderclaps."

According to the official, lightning has the potential to inflict damage, and despite its rare occurrence in the UAE, lightning cannot be ruled out as a possible danger to human life and property, especially during thunderstorms.

In a freak accident in August 2002, lightning killed 11 camels in an animal training facility at Nahil area in the desert, some 50km from Al Ain City. According to meteorologists, such thunderstorms are common during the month of August in the eastern region, but casualty is still rare.

The world over lightning kills more people each year than tornadoes or hurricanes, yet loss of property and life can be prevented if certain safety precautions are adhered to.

However, widespread misconceptions and ignorance can make one prone to the destructive power of lightning, the meteorologist noted. He added that an awareness of the dangers of lightning, at least among people residing in regions prone to lightning strikes, is a major preventive step.

Explaining the phenomenon he said that lightning is technically a transient discharge of static electricity that serves to re-establish electrostatic balance within a stormy weather.

"Even during small thunderstorms, strong updrafts and down drafts occur with regularity, and updrafts carry water droplets up into the cloud, while ice particles descend from the frozen upper portions of the cloud. During this process, they collide with each other," he said.

He added that through this process, electrons shear off the ascending water droplets and collect on the descending ice particles which, in turn, generates an electric field within the cloud, with the top having a positive charge and the bottom having a negative charge. According to the expert, electric field is also generated between the bottom portion of the cloud and the surface of the earth, but since it is not as strong as the field within the cloud, most lightning occurs within the cloud itself.

The atmosphere, the expert said, was a very good insulator and as such a great amount of charge has to build up before lightning could occur.

The electric field, however, overpowers the atmosphere’s insulative properties when that limit is reached, and lightning strikes, he explained.