Scattered thunderstorms to move through tonight

Right now, according to NWS radar, some very light showers are located across Lake and Obion Counties and slowly moving toward the southeast. Some additional showers will be moving into this area in the next few hours.

According to the Hazardous Weather Outlook issued by the NWS, some scattered thundershowers will push into the Mid-South late tonight and tomorrow. Here is what they said:

A WARM FRONT WILL PUSH INTO THE MID-SOUTH FROM THE SOUTHWEST TONIGHT. MEANWHILE...AN UPPER LEVEL DISTURBANCE WILL APPROACH FROM THE NORTHWEST. SCATTERED TO NUMEROUS SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP AHEAD OF THE UPPER LEVEL DISTURBANCE AND SPREAD INTO THE MID-SOUTH LATER TONIGHT. HOWEVER...THE THREAT OF SEVERE WEATHER IS LOW.

Additionally, some thundershowers will move throughout the Mid-South tomorrow. The main threat from these storms will be heavy rainfall. These showers should slowly exit the Mid-South Tuesday toward the northeast, so the northern half of the area will be seeing additional rainfall. Wednesday and beyond, summer weather returns to our area with heat index values possibly reaching near 105. Actual highs will be around 97.

New discussion board!

New! I have created a discussion board so that users of this blog may communicate with each other! The address is http://midsouthwx.invisionplus.net. I encourage you to visit it today and sign up (it's free!)

Parts of Mid-South under burn bans

Due to the recent dry conditions, Clay County, Mississippi is under a burn ban. This means that any outdoor burning is prohibited in this county. During this firework-shooting season, please respect the officials and DO NOT shoot anything. There are no other burn bans in effect at this time in the Mid-South.

Some NWRs may go out today

In a PNS issued by the NWS Memphis, the forecasters state that they are performing maintenance on the NOAA Weather Radio systems and, as a result, they may go out for some short periods. This will take place from 9 AM - 4 PM. Additionally, the weekly test of the NWRs will take place tomorrow at its regularly scheduled time, instead of today.

Day Five - Lightning Safety Awareness Week

"Medical Aspects of Lightning"

How Big A Problem Is This? Statistics

Lightning has been the second largest storm killer in the U.S. for the last 40 years, exceeded only by floods. A lightning strike can result in a cardiac arrest (heart stopping) at the time of the injury, although some victims may appear to have a delayed death a few days later if they are resuscitated but have suffered irreversible brain damage.

According to Storm Data, a National Weather Service publication, over the last 30 years the U.S. has averaged 66 reported lightning fatalities per year. Due to under reporting, the figures are more realistically at least 70 deaths per year. Only about 10% of people who are struck by lightning are killed, leaving 90% with various degrees of disability.

ODDS OF BECOMING A LIGHTNING VICTIM
U.S. 2000 Census population	280,000,000
Odds of being struck by lightning in a given year (reported deaths + injuries)	1/700,000
Odds of being struck by lightning in a given year (estimated total deaths + injuries)	1/400,000
Odds of being struck in your lifetime (Est. 80 years)	1/5000
Odds you will be affected by someone being struck (Ten people affected for every one struck)	1/500

Who Gets Injured

While about one third of all injuries occur during work, workers compensation companies are often reluctant to acknowledge the injury or pay related medical expenses. About another third of injuries occur during recreational or sports activities. The last third occurs in diverse situation, including injuries to those inside buildings.

How Do Lightning Injuries Affect People?

Lightning tends to be a nervous system injury and may affect the brain, autonomic nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. When the brain is affected, the person often has difficulty with short-term memory, coding new information and accessing old information, multitasking, distractibility, irritability and personality change.

"Patients have difficulty in all areas that require them to analyze more items of information than they can handle simultaneously. They present (appear) as slow because it takes longer for smaller than normal chunks of information to be processed. They present as distractible because they do not have the spare capacity to monitor irrelevant stimuli at the same time as they are attending to the relevant stimulus. They present as forgetful because while they are concentrating on point A, they do not have the processing space to think about point B simultaneously. They present as inattentive because when the amount of information that they are given exceeds their capacities, they cannot take it all in."

Early on, survivors may complain of intense headaches, ringing in the ears, dizziness, nausea, vomiting and other post-concussion types of symptoms. Survivors may also experience difficulty sleeping, sometimes sleeping excessively at first and then only two or three hours at a time. A few may develop seizure-like activity several weeks to months after the injury.

Personality Changes / Self-Isolation

Many lightning victims may suffer personality changes because of frontal lobe damage and become quite irritable and easy to anger. People who wake up after the injury often do not have the ability to express what is wrong with them, may not recognize much, become embarrassed when they cannot carry on a conversation, work at their previous job, or do the activities that they used to handle. As a result, many isolate themselves, withdrawing from church, friends, family and other activities. Friends, family and co-workers who see the same external person, may not understand why the survivor is so different. Friends soon stop coming by or asking them to participate in activities. Families who are not committed to each other break up.

Obviously, depression becomes a big problem for people who have changed so much and lost so much. Suicide is something almost all severely injured people have thought about at one time or another. Occasionally, those who do not have access to medical care or who do not understand what is happening may resort to alcohol and other drugs, particularly those who have previously used these options. Family and friends of the survivor must remain supportive even though it may require an adjustment in their relationship with the survivor. An injury such as this affects the entire family, not just to the person hit.

Fatigue

Survivors often complain of becoming exhausted after only a few hours of work. This may be because tasks they used to do automatically now require intense concentration. Many return to work but find that they cannot do all of the activities required at their job.

Medical Testing

There are two kinds of medical tests:

• Anatomic tests take a simple picture (x-ray) or measurement (blood count)
• Functional tests show how something is working (PET, neuropsychological testing)

Sometimes function can be ascribed to the anatomic tests but often it cannot. The mental changes of a lightning survivor are functional (how the brain works) changes, not anatomic. Anatomic tests such as a CT scan and MRI are usually normal. More functional scans such as PET and SPECT may show changes but are hard to obtain due to their relative infrequency in medical centers. To use an analogy: if an electric shock were sent through a computer, the outside case would probably look OK (similar to a photo or x-rays of the person), the computer boards on the inside would probably look OK and not be fused nor melted (CT, MRI for the person), but when you boot up the computer it would have difficulty accessing files, making calculations, printing, etc. This situation is similar in a person with brain injury who has short-term memory problems, difficulty accessing and coding information, difficulty organizing output, etc.

More useful is a functional test of how a person's brain is working: a neurocognitive or neuropsychological testing. These tests are administered by a neuropsychologist, not by a psychiatrist. The tests consist of a 6-8 hour battery of tests including memory, IQ and organizational ability. Survivors of lightning and electrical injury usually have a characteristic pattern of deficits.

Delayed Problems

Another common, often delayed, problem for some survivors is pain, also difficult to quantify and manage. The pain may not be from chronic intense headaches but may be in the back (perhaps from compression and disc injury from the intense muscle contractions which may throw a person several yards at the time of the injury), or in an extremity. Some may have nerve entrapment syndromes and a small number may eventually develop Sympathetically Mediated Pain Syndrome.

Sometimes the functional tests ordered are testing the wrong thing. An electromyogram (EMG) measures only the motor fibers, which are seldom affected by lightning injury. Smaller pain carrying nerve fibers are not tested by EMG so that a normal EMG means little when ordered for someone with pain. Likewise, the standard EEG primarily measure surface readings of the brain and misses seizure activity in several deeper regions.

Decreased libido and impotence are often reported.

Help Exists - Lightning Strike and Electric Shock Survivors, International, Support Group

An organization of tremendous help to survivors, families, physicians and other professionals is Lightning Strike and Electric Shock Survivors, International (LSESSI), a support group formed in 1989 by a lightning victim. LSESSI has printed materials, offers tremendous support, networks survivors with others in their area, and provides an annual meeting where survivors come together for support and lectures from professionals who work with lightning and electrical survivors and their families. LSESSI can be reached at 910-346-4708, info@lightning-strike.org, or see their Website at http://www.lightning-strike.org/, or at P.O. Box 1156, Jacksonville, NC 28541-1156.

Four Factors Necessary for Recovery

The four most important factors in overcoming disability from lightning injury (or from any illness or major injury for that matter) are:

• Supportive family/friends network.
• Becoming your own advocate and learning as much as you can about this disability.
• A physician willing to listen, read, learn and work with the survivor and their family.
• A sense of humor.

Prevention

Far more important than treating survivors is preventing lightning injury. All of the people who helped make possible National Lightning Safety Awareness Week hope it will help you and your family learn how to avoid injury. Prevention is the KEY.

This factsheet courtesy Dr. Mary Ann Cooper- Associate Professor, Departments of Emergency Medicine and Bioengineering University of Illinois at Chicago

Day Four - Lightning Safety Awareness Week

What is a Safe Shelter?

A house or other substantial building offers the best protection from lightning. In assessing the safety provided by a particular structure, it is more important to consider what happens if the structure gets struck by lightning, rather than whether the structure will be hit by lightning. For a shelter to provide protection from lightning, it must contain a mechanism for conducting the electrical current from the point of contact to the ground. These mechanisms may be on the outside of the structure, may be contained within the walls of the structure, or may be a combination of the two. On the outside, lightning can travel along the outer shell of the building or may follow metal gutters and downspouts to the ground. Inside a structure, lightning can follow conductors such as the electrical wiring, plumbing, and telephone lines to the ground.

Avoid Unsafe Shelters!

Unless specifically designed to be lightning safe, small structures do little, if anything, to protect occupants from lightning. Many small open shelters on athletic fields, golf courses, parks, roadside picnic areas, schoolyards and elsewhere are designed to protect people from rain and sun, but not lightning. A shelter that does not contain plumbing or wiring throughout, or some other mechanism for grounding from the roof to ground is not safe. Small wooden, vinyl, or metal sheds offer little or no protection from lightning and should be avoided during thunderstorms.

How Lightning Enters a House or Building

There are three main ways lightning enters homes and buildings: (1) a direct strike, (2) through wires or pipes that extend outside the structure, and (3) through the ground. Regardless of the method of entrance, once in a structure, the lightning can travel through the electrical, phone, plumbing, and radio/television reception systems. Lightning can also travel through any metal wires or bars in concrete walls or flooring.

Stay Safe While Inside

Phone use is the leading cause of indoor lightning injuries in the United States. Lightning can travel long distances in both phone and electrical wires, particularly in rural areas. Stay away from windows and doors as these can provide the path for a direct strike to enter a home. Do not lie on the concrete floor of a garage as it likely contains a wire mesh. In general, basements are a safe place to go during thunderstorms. However, there are some things to keep in mind. Avoid contact with concrete walls which may contain metal reinforcing bars. Avoid washers and dryers since they not only have contacts with the plumbing and electrical systems, but also contain an electrical path to the outside through the dryer vent.

Remember Your Pets

You may want to consider the safety of your family pets during thunderstorms. Dog houses are not lightning-safe. Dogs that are chained to trees or chained to wire runners can easily fall victim to a lightning strike.

Protect Your Personal Property

Lightning also causes significant damage to personal property each year. In addition to direct strikes, lightning generates electrical surges that can damage electronic equipment some distance from the actual strike. Typical surge protectors will NOT protect equipment from a lightning strike. To the extent possible, unplug any appliances or electronic equipment from all conductors well before a thunderstorm threatens. This includes not only the electrical system, but also the reception system. If you plan to be away from your home when thunderstorms are possible, be sure to unplug unneeded equipment before you leave.

Summary of Lightning Safety Tips for Inside the Home

1. Avoid contact with corded phones
2. Avoid contact with electrical equipment or cords. If you plan to unplug any electronic equipment, do so well before the storm arrives.
3. Avoid contact with plumbing. Do not wash your hands, do not take a shower, do not wash dishes, and do not do laundry.
4. Stay away from windows and doors, and stay off porches.
5. Do not lie on concrete floors and do not lean against concrete walls.

Day Three - Lightning Safety Awareness Week

"Lightning Safety Outdoors"

This document has two main sections: lightning safety when a safe location is nearby and risk reduction--not safety!--when a safe location is NOT close. No place is absolutely safe from lightning; however, some places are much safer than others. The SAFEST location during lightning activity is a large enclosed building, not a picnic shelter or shed. The second safest location is an enclosed metal vehicle, car, truck, van, etc., but NOT a convertible, bike or other topless or soft top vehicle.

Safe Buildings

A safe building is one that is fully enclosed with a roof, walls and floor, such as a home, school, office building or a shopping center. Even inside, you should take precautions. Picnic shelters, dugouts, sheds and other partially open or small structures are NOT safe.

Enclosed buildings are safe because of wiring and plumbing. If lightning strikes these types of buildings, or an outside telephone pole, the electrical current from the flash will typically travel through the wiring or the plumbing into the ground. This is why you should stay away from showers, sinks, hot tubs, etc., and electronic equipment such as TVs, radios, and computers.

Lightning can damage or destroy electronics so it's important to have a proper lightning protection system connected to your electronic equipment. The American Meteorological Society has tips for protecting your electronics from lightning.

Unsafe Buildings

Examples of buildings which are unsafe include car ports, covered but open garages, covered patio, picnic shelters, beach shacks/pavilions, golf shelters, camping tents, large outdoor tents, baseball dugouts and other small buildings such as sheds and greeenhouses that do not have electricity or plumbing.

Safe Vehicle

A safe vehicle is a hard-topped car, SUV, minivan, bus, tractor, etc. (soft-topped convertibles are not safe) . If you seek shelter in your vehicle, make sure all doors are closed and windows rolled up. Do not touch any metal surfaces.

If you're driving when a thunderstorm starts, pull off the roadway. A lightning flash hitting the vehicle could startle you and cause temporary blindness, especially at night.

Do not use electronic devices such as HAM radios or cell phones during a thunderstorm. Lightning striking the vehicle, especially the antennas, could cause serious injury if you are talking on the radio or holding the microphone at the time of the flash. Emergency officials such as police officers, firefighters, security officers, etc., should use extreme caution using radio equipment when lightning is in the area.

Your vehicle and its electronics may be damaged if hit by lightning. Vehicles struck by lightning are known to have flat tires the next day. This occurs because the lightning punctures tiny holes in the tires. Vehicles have caught fire after being struck by lightning; however, there is no modern day documented cases of vehicles "exploding" due to a lightning flash.

Bolts from the Blue

There are times when a lightning flash can travel horizontally many miles away from the thunderstorm cloud itself and then strike the ground. These types of lightning flashes are called "Bolts from the Blue" because they seem to come out of a clear blue sky. Although these flashes are rare, they have been known to cause fatalities.

---

When a Safe Location is Nearby:

• Seek safe shelter when you first hear thunder, see dark threatening clouds developing overhead or lightning. Count the seconds between the time you see lightning and hear the thunder. You should already be in a safe location if that time is less than 30 seconds.
• Stay inside until 30 minutes after you last hear thunder.

Figure: When you hear thunder, run to the nearest large building or a fully enclosed vehicle. You are not safe anywhere outside.

Click here to calculate how far lightning is away from you

Plan Ahead! Your best source of up-to-date weather information is a NOAA Weather Radio (NWR). Portable weather radios are handy for outdoor activities. If you don't have NWR, stay up to date via internet, TV, local radio or cell phone. If you are in a group, make sure all leaders or members of the group have a lightning safety plan and are ready to use it.

Determine how far you are from a safe enclosed building or a safe vehicle. As soon as you hear thunder, see lightning or see dark threatening clouds, get to a safe location. Then wait 30 minutes after the last rumble of thunder before you leave the safe location. If you are part of a group, particularly a large one, you will need more time to get all group members to safety. NWS recommends having professional lightning detection equipment so your group can be alerted from significant distances from the event site.

When groups are involved, the time needed to get to safety increases. So you need to start leaving sooner. Your entire group should already be in a safe location when the approaching storm reaches within 5 miles from your location.

Here some two common scenarios with suggestions on how to safely respond.

Coach of Outdoor Sports Team

You are a manager of a little league team and have a game this evening at the local recreational park. The weather forecast for the day calls for a partly cloudy skies, with a chance of thunderstorms by early evening. You arrive in your vehicle while the kids arrive with their parents. Once arriving at the park, you notice the only buildings are the the restrooms, an enclosed building. Shortly after sunset, the skies start to cloud up and you see bright flashes in the sky to the west. The local radio station mentions storms are on the way.

In this case, the safest locations are the vehicles the kids came in or the rest rooms. You should have a choice of allowing the kids to go back to their vehicles or bring everyone into the restrooms. It is important NOT to stay in the dugouts as they are not safe place during lightning activity. Once at a safe place, wait 30 minutes after the last rumble of thunder before going back outside.

Family at the Beach

You plan to go to the beach or lake later this morning with the kids. The weather forecast calls for a nice morning followed by a 30 percent chance of afternoon thunderstorms. You decide to head for the beach in your minivan. The beach is about 5 minutes from the parking lot. The only nearby buildings are picnic shelters. By early afternoon you notice the skies darkening and hear distant thunder. What would be your lightning safety plan of action?

In this case, the best place to go is your car. Do NOT seek shelter under the beach picnic shacks because these are not safe in lightning storms. Wait 30 minutes until after the last thunder crack before going back to the beach or driving home.

Camping

You and your family are camping. As you and your spouse are preparing dinner on the camp stove, you here rumbles of thunder in the distance. You look around and you see your tent is nearby, and a large picnic shelter is just down the trail. Your car is about ¼ of a mile away parked at the trailhead. What should you and your family do?

In this case, the smartest thing to do is to round up your family and get into your car. The tent is not a safe place to be as it offers NO protection from a lighting flash. The picnic shelter is also not a safe location. (Both the tent and picnic shelter will keep you dry…but they offer NO protection from a lightning flash). It is best to remain in your vehicle for about 30 minutes after the last rumble of thunder is heard.

---

When a Safe Location Is Not Nearby

The lightning safety community reminds you that there is NO safe place to be outside in a thunderstorm. If you absolutely can't get to safety, this section is designed to help you lessen the threat of being struck by lightning while outside. Don't kid yourself--you are NOT safe outside.

Being stranded outdoors when lightning is striking nearby is a harrowing experience. Your first and only truly safe choice is to get to a safe building or vehicle. If you are camping, climbing, on a motorcycle or bicycle, boating, scuba diving, or enjoying other outdoor activities and cannot get to a safe vehicle or shelter, follow these last resort tips. These will not prevent you from being hit, just slightly lesson the odds.

• Do NOT seek shelter under tall isolated trees. The tree may help you stay dry but will significantly increase your risk of being struck by lightning. Rain will not kill you, but the lightning can!
• Do NOT seek shelter under partially enclosed buildings
• Stay away from tall, isolated objects. Lightning typically strikes the tallest object. That may be you in an open field or clearing.
• Know the weather patterns of the area. For example, in mountainous areas, thunderstorms typically develop in the early afternoon, so plan to hike early in the day and be down the mountain by noon.
• Know the weather forecast. If there is a high chance of thunderstorms, curtail your outdoor activities.
• Do not place your campsite in an open field on the top of a hill or on a ridge top. Keep your site away from tall isolated trees or other tall objects. If you are in a forest, stay near a lower stand of trees. If you are camping in an open area, set up camp in a valley, ravine, or other low area. A tent offers NO protection from lighting.
• Wet ropes can make excellent conductors. This is BAD news when it comes to lightning activity. If you are mountain climbing and see lightning, and can do so safely, remove unnecessary ropes extended or attached to you. If a rope is extended across a mountain face and lightning makes contact with it, the electrical current will likely travel along the rope, especially if it is wet.
• Stay away from metal objects, such as fences, poles and backpacks. Metal is an excellent conductor. The current from a lightning flash will easily travel for long distances (See Figure 1)

Figure: Dead cows lined up along a metallic fence. Lightning struck the fence, and the current traveled along the fence killing the cows. Photo Courtesy Ruth Lyon-Bateman

If lightning is in the immediate area, and there is no safe location nearby, stay a little aparts from other members of your group so the lightning won't travel between you if hit. Keep your feet together and sit on the ground out in the open. If you can possible run to a vehicle or building, DO so. It is much safer than sitting on the ground.

Motorcyclist/Bicyclist: So has anyone been hit riding a bike? Here are just a few real examples from the last few years.

• Virginia Beach, VA: Motorcyclist killed while traveling on Route 58.
• Altoona, PA: One motorcycle rider killed and three riders injured when they took shelter in a woods from a thunderstorm.
• Wyoming: Motorcyclist injured while driving home on I-90 from Sturgis.
• Taylor Park, CO: Dirt biker injured while heading down mountain pass.

Protect Yourself when on a bicycle, motorcycle or dirt bike.

• Carry a portable Weather Radio or listen to commercial radio.
• If you see threatening skies in the distance and you are passing a safe location, pull over and wait 30 minutes after the last thunder crack.
• If you can turn around and get away from the storm, do so!
• DO NOT ride into a lighting storm!

If you absolutely cannot get to a safe building or vehicle, here are some last resort choices:

• Wait out the storm below an overpass. DO NOT touch steel girders. Move away from your bike. Remain on dry surfaces if possible. Overpasses are engineered structures and are likely to be properly grounded. Although an overpass is likely to be higher than the surrounding landscape, if it is struck by lightning, the electrical current will likely be channeled safely into the ground.
• Look for a bridge. Stay away from water. Stay away from any metal surfaces. Be alert for rapidly rising water if under a bridge.
• High tension wires: If high voltage electrical tension wires cross the road, you may want to seek shelter directly underneath these wires. Do not get too close to the large metal towers which hold up these wires. Stay at least 50 feet away. Electric companies design these high tension wires for lightning strikes. If lighting should strike the wires or towers, the current is designed to safely go deep into the ground.
• If you are caught in the open and lightning is occurring within 5 miles, STOP riding, get off of your motorcycle/bicycle, find a ditch or other low spot and sit down.
• Motorcyclists should move at least 50 feet away from their bike. Bicyclist should lay their bikes on the ground.

IMPORTANT: These recommendations are a last resort. You are NOT safe in these places just marginally safer than in the open.

Click here to read a story about a motorcyclist killed while riding in lightning.

On the Water

The vast majority of lightning injuries and deaths on boats occur on small boats with NO cabin. It is crucial to listen to the weather on a small aquatic vessel without a cabin. If thunderstorms are forecast, don't go out. If you are out on the water and skies are threatening, get back to land and find a safe building or vehicle.

Boats with cabins offer a safer but not perfect environment. Safety is increased further if the boat has a properly installed lightning protection system. If you are inside the cabin, stay away from metal and all electrical components. STAY OFF THE RADIO UNLESS IT IS AN ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY!

What should you do if you are on a small vessel and lightning becomes a threat? If the vessel has an anchor, then you should properly anchor the boat then get as low as possible.

Large boats with cabins, especially those with lightning protection systems properly installed or metal marine vessels are relatively safe. Remember to stay inside the cabin and away from any metal surfaces.

Scuba Divers

If the boat you are in does not have a safe cabin to be in during lightning activity, then you are safer diving deep into the water for the duration of the storm or as long as possible. Your first choice is to head in and get in safe building or vehicle.