Can a bullet fired into the storm cloud cause lightning to strike?
Can a bullet fired into the storm cloud cause lightning to strike?
I’m just curious during thunderstorm, if anyone tried to fire a bullet during storm into clouds? Will the lightning strike the bullet? Mythbusters or someone else maybe did that ?
I don't know about bullets, but laser beams seem to work: https://www.sci.news/physics/laser-guided-lightning-11572.html
If there were a wire tied to the back of it. It's been done with rockets.
If there were a wire tied to the back of it, it wouldn't even reach it.
Bravo!
Seems like someone is doing a whole lotta smiteing in the Bible belt. That surely can't be a sign.
Paywall :(
The URL indicates it's a story about Floridians being encouraged to shoot firearms at a hurricane.
The subsequent image seems to indicate Florida sees a lot more lightning strikes than the rest of the US.
“Florida gun owners encouraged to 'shoot the storm' and fire their guns at Hurricane Irma
By Harriet Alexander New York 9 September 2017 • 8:47am Shoot at Irma A Florida man who suggested shooting guns at Hurricane Irma out of "stress and boredom" has found that his idea has captured peoples' imaginations - with over 46,000 signing up to join in.
Hurricane Irma is due to hit Florida on Saturday, and the state is currently experiencing the largest ever mass evacuation due to a hurricane in American history.
But Ryon Edwards, 22, came up with a novel way of amusing himself during the storm: firing bullets into it.
He started a Facebook "event", and as of Friday evening 46,000 people say they are interested.
"A combination of stress and boredom made me start the event," he told the BBC.
"The response is a complete and total surprise to me.
"I never envisioned this event becoming some kind of crazy idea larger than myself. It has become something a little out of my control."
The "Shoot at Irma" page Graphics suggesting how to shoot at a hurricane have sprung up online, with the suggestion that if you fire correctly the bullet might not come back and kill you.
Since Mr Edwards came up with his "masterplan", other similar Facebook pages have been created - including one suggesting using flame throwers to scare away the storm.
"It's time we took a stand against this bully!" reads the event description. "This is our home, nobody drives us out of our own territory.
"Join me in this fight as we shoot flames at Hurricane Irma and dissipate her on the spot."”
Hurricanes usually don't produce much lightning at all. We get way more during a regular afternoon thunderstorm.
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No. Lightning happens when charge builds up. When it gets big enough relative to how much resistance there is to the ground, it manages to ionize the air, creating a pathway for the charge to flow to/from ground and neutralizing it. The metal in the bullet would likely be a better conductor than air (less resistance), but it is absolutely miniscule and these things happen on an enormous scale. There would also need to be a near-critical charge there already - a lightning strike "waiting to happen". Charge keeps building in a thunderstorm, so basically it'd just happen a moment later anyway at "best", if you magically managed to fire a bullet at the right time and location to make a critical difference in resistance.
In order to force a lightning strike you need to bring the charged particles closer together, increase conductivity of the air or increase the amount of charged particles. If a bullet can do any of this, it may cause a lightning strike
It seems plausible that the vapor trail of changing air pressure behind a bullet could create a momentary channel of increased conductivity and/or particle density as air rushes back into the void created by the passing projectile. I wonder if the effect is persistent enough to enable a static discharge all along the path though.
A campaign to force “absentee MP” Nadine Dorries to attend parliament or face a by-election this autumn is being spearheaded by the chair of the Commons standards committee.
Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant told the Financial Times he wanted to see the restoration of a parliamentary rule from 1801 stating that “no member do presume to go out of town without leave of this House”, in an effort to force Dorries to follow through on her vow to resign.
The MP for Mid Bedfordshire and former culture secretary has angered opposition MPs and some fellow Tories by remaining in post since she announced on June 9 that she would step down “with immediate effect” in protest at not being given a peerage in former prime minister Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
Dorries — whose claim that Rishi Sunak’s administration blocked her nomination “to punish Boris” has been denied by Downing Street — insists she is delaying her exit from the Commons while she seeks more information about the process regarding her peerage nomination.
However, detractors say Dorries was not fully involved in the business of parliament long before promising to quit. According to House of Commons records, she has not spoken in the Commons since July last year or worked on either a select committee or bill committee.
The records also show Dorries has voted on legislation on only four days in the past year, most recently in April. There are no sanctions for MPs, who earn a basic salary of £86,580, for not participating in the Commons.
Criticising Dorries as an “absentee MP”, Bryant said that when MPs returned to parliament in September it would be “perfectly legitimate . . . to table a motion saying the member for Mid Bedfordshire — and, for that matter, anybody else who hasn’t turned up for six months — must attend by such-and-such a date or will be suspended from the House for 10 sitting days or more”.
The proposal, which Bryant said he had presented to government and Labour whips, is detailed in his new book, Code of Conduct: Why We Need to Fix Parliament — and How to Do It.
In it he explained the rule: “If the House nominated you, you had to attend. Thus when William Smith O’Brien refused to serve on a railway committee in 1846, the House had him detained overnight in the Clock Tower cell.”
A 10-day Commons suspension would trigger a recall petition, giving Dorries’ local constituents the chance to vote for a by-election. Bryant acknowledged his move could become “completely unnecessary” if Dorries chose to resign and provoke a by-election herself.
Asked this week if Dorries was failing her constituents, the prime minister told LBC: “I think people deserve to have an MP that represents them, wherever they are.” Sunak added: “At the moment people aren’t being properly represented.” Last month, Flitwick town council in Mid Bedfordshire expressed its “concerns and frustration with the situation” and urged Dorries to “immediately vacate” the seat.
In an open letter, the council accused Dorries of focusing on her chat show on TV network TalkTV, forthcoming book and “political manoeuvres to embarrass the government for not appointing you to the House of Lords”, rather than representing constituents.
Noting that Dorries had not spoken in the Commons since July 2022, it added that she had failed to hold a surgery in the town since March 2020 and had not maintained a constituency office “for a considerable time”.
Dorries was contacted for comment.
