are showers during thunderstoms dangerous?

Question

i've always heard you run a high risk of being struck by lightning when you take a shower during a thunderstorm, or if you're on the phone. is any of this true? and if so, why?

Answer 1

Okay, again, lots of answers, getting nowhere.

First of all let me tell you I am the Chief Meteorologist of a local news/weather forum, just so you know I`m a credible source.


--My answer--
I was at a meteorological science convention with a few of my peers not too long ago. This was one of the "tests" that came up.
As the last post said, it is RELATIVELY rare (only occurring in 6 out of 20 studies)......... but it did happen. Electricity was successfully transferred from the plumbing system of the test bathroom, to the sensors inside the "man" in the shower.

**Bottom Line**
Stay off the phone, stay off the computer, stay out of the tub........ just sit and enjoy mother nature, as she does her work.


Take care...
Weather_Wise911

Answer 2

Negative, the pipes in your house are grounded and this means the water offers more resistance than the pipes. Your body and the shower or tub would be the wrong direction for voltage to flow. The source of electricity would have to be in the shower with you.

Perhaps you live in a situation where your drain is not part of your home but merely a plastic "hook up" which in that case still No because the Current instead of choosing the pipes over the water as offering less resistance would instead repel the entire notion of conductivity the ways the tires on your car do.

Shower all you want during the storm. Now Phones and other wires coming into your home are another story... you could be in danger if they are not grounded or some lazy installer tried to ground using water pipes that aren't bonded. Make sure your Phone, Cable TV, and Satellite have a common bond with power to ensure there is no difference in potential... if you don't know, you could very well lose the equipment attached to them in a thunderstorm.

Answer 3

For the safety of you and your loved ones, do NOT listen to answers here saying that what you describe is not true. Taking a shower or bath during a thunderstorm is just plain dangerous. A lightning bolt doesn't stop at ground level but may penetrate several feet below ground where it can easily move on through the water in pipes into your bathtub. Lightning can and does strike external phone lines and travel through them into the telephone inside your house. Cordless phones are okay because there's no physical connection to the phone lines.

Answer 4

Amazingly enough yes it is true. The same goes for a plugged in air conditioner, the phone, the toilet (yes, toilet), electricity follows wires, metal and water. Just because lightning doesn't strike right outside your home, doesn't mean it can't affect you! A lightning strike to a copper pipe can travel for miles. If there's water in that pipe, then it could go even farther! Same for phone lines! Also dishwashers, clotheswashers, clothesdryers. Look your best bet is to simply not do any clothes dishes or body washing during a storm. It might be a good idea to stay off your comp as well. (My father worked for 26 years for the Ontario Hydro Industry. They make electricity.)

Answer 5

I've answered this question before...so using the same words again doesn't count as plagarism, does it?

Dangerous? Relative to what?

I've taken innumerable showers during thunderstorms. Innumerable others have as well.

We have roughly 300,000,000 people in the US. Probably between 100 and 200 people die from electrical shock related to lighting in the US each year. An extraordinarily low risk to begin with.

Of those, I would be surprised to find any had died in the act of taking a shower indoors.

So is it dangerous? Certainly less so than driving your car for the same amount of time. Regardless of the possibility that plumbing within a building struck by lightning could carry some current, the numbers don’t lie.

Despite meteorologists’ penchant for presenting studies of such oddities at AMS and NWA conferences, the numbers don’t lie.

Notwithstanding the eagerness with which many meteorologists overestimate the seriousness of their profession and the deference owed them by the public for their schooling in vector calculus and fluid dynamics, the numbers don’t lie.

Showering in a thunderstorm doesn’t expose one to a level of risk warranting a scolding from a meteorologist. That’s more pathetic than a marine biologist preaching the menace of Bull Sharks to swimmers on Florida’s Gulf Coast. I don’t mean to disparage professional weather-weenies – after all, yours truly graduated from the University of Oklahoma School of Weenie-dom – but good heavens! We ought to look at this in nuts-and-bolts ‘do the numbers back this up?’ context.

The universe presents such a variety of paths to one's grave - from the common to the rare, from the mundane to the uproariously absurd. Electrocution via hot shower during a thunderstorm? I’d rank it somewhere to the funny side of ‘death by falling piano’ and to the rare side of ‘death by reentry of Russian space junk’.

Answer 6

I did a whole bunch of stuff, when there were thundershowers( leave all windows open,go swimming in the lake,take a shower...) but since my boyfriend is in the picture I had to stop because he thinks that it's all too dangerous.He says that if you leave the windows open,there will be a draft and lightning can go through your house....doesn't want me to take a shower ,says I'll get grounded if there was to have lightning strike not too far....I personally think it's bull(except the window thing-that makes sense) but he does spook me out with his stories...

Answer 7

It's a longshot, but it's possible, since lightning could hit a water source or piping if you're talking about the shower...and on the phone if the bolt hits phone or electrical lines.

It's rare but it's possible.

Answer 8

Yes because lightning can travel into your home via the plumbing or the phone line if it strikes

Answer 9

It's true because the electricity can travel through the water or through the phone cords/wires.

Answer 10

You're just bragging about having a phone installed in your shower, aren't you? Come on, own up!