If lightning hits the sea, considering electricity is conducted by water, how far does it gets?

Question

Does it kills everything on its path? do they really hit the water?

Answer 1

Lightening hits the water all the time.
The electricity, dissipates as it moves farther and farther away from the strike.
If you under or really close to the strike, you suffer the effects, possible electrocution, but as you move farther away, the effects diminish, and the current spreads out, and diminish over distance.

Theoretically, the current could continue for miles and miles, but you will not feel it, it would be so weak, on very sensitive equipment will pick it up

Answer 2

I do believe the "Energy" from the lightning Bolt will follow the inverse square law. Where the Energy of the Lightning bolt will fall off as the square of the distance from where it struck the water. lightning strikes of one trillion watts and higher have been detected, but the majority run in the 100 Million watt range.
A simplistic equation would look something like this:
If Lightning bolt = 100 million Watts then:

100 million watts at 1 meter from Strike Point will be 100 Megawatt / 1 (squared) or essentially 100 Megawatts(FRIED ZONE)
At 2 meters 100 Megawatt/ 2^2 (2 squared = 4) = 100 Megawatt/ 4 = 25 Megawatt (Fried zone)
at 4 meters 100 Megawatt/ 16 = 6.25 Megawatt ((Fried zone)
At 8 meters 100 Megawatt/ 64 = 1.56 Megawatt ((Fried zone)
At 16 meters 100 Megawatt/ 256 = .4 Megawatt (death zone)
At 32 meters 100 Megawatt/ 1064 = .09 Megawatt (death zone)
At 64 meters 100 Megawatt/ 4096 = 25,000 watts (death zone)
100 meters is just over a football field long (still death zone)
At 128 meters 100 Megawatt/ 16384 = 6103 Watts (still death zone)
At 256 meters 100 Megawatt/ 65536 = 1525 Watts (still death zone)
512 meters is more than ¼ mile (Maybe Zone)
At 512 meters 100 Megawatt/ 262144 = 381 Watts
1024 meters is more than a ½ mile (probably ok zone)
At 1024 meters 100 Megawatt/ 1048576 = 95 watts(probably ok zone)
2048 meters is more than a mile (ok zone)
At 2048 meters 100 Megawatt/ 4194304 = 24 watts
(Just a faint tingle Zone)

Looking at these numbers, I would want to be at least a mile from the Strike point.

This will not be the same on a lake where the sodium content is minimal. Fresh water is not as good a conductor of electricity as salt water is.
Also, if the lake is very shallow, electricity wants the least resistive path to ground, so in a shallow lake or pond you may get most of the energy to dissipate in a more "vertical" fashion and the "Kill Zone" may not reach out as far horizontally.

The real formula would be more complex than this. If you want me to run it let me know. It would show a more aggressive decrease in watts over distance but I think this gives you the picture.

http://www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_060627.html

Answer 3

Juggernaut is correct. The further electricity travels through a conductor, the more the current gets weaker. Thus the need for transformers, substations, etc along our power lines.

Answer 4

It will go on forever until there is something stopping it.It will kill everything in the water.