Lightning can kill multiple street lights in one bolt

Hello,
Consider a charged up thundercloud which is above a line of streetlights in the middle of a motorway say...Can the lightining bolt(s) kill all streetlights in one go?...ie the adjacent streetlights act as parallel paths to earth? Or is it only one streetlight which dies per lightning bolt?

Lightning always takes the easiest route to ground, if it elevates the voltage on something along the way it may be damaged no matter how far away it is. Bear in mind that voltage takes time to propagate so the further away from the strike, the more likely it is that that something has discharged it below danger level.

Brian.

Hello treez,
Due to the extreme high voltage of a lightening strike, it can generate an intense EM Pulse that
can effect transmission lines of either voltage or communications. It can also destroy equipment
that is connected to an antenna system.
In most instances with domestic repairs, lightening only needs to strike nearby antennas to induce
a high voltage down the cable and into the appliance. Sometimes jumping the initial first input.
i.e. It can jump the set top box or VCR and kill the DVD player that is joined via AV cable and not
via coax. Thus also bypassing the TV's circuitry. As I've said in another post, lightening seems to
be so random that it almost has a mind of its own.
Regards,
Relayer

We once had a lightning bolt near our long building. I don't think it was a direct strike, but it knocked out an intercom power supply. The old-fashioned intercom system had 16 phones throughout the length of the building. The power supply was its only connection to mains.
Examining the simple rugged power supply, I found that the ruined component was a 5 watt zener diode voltage regulator. I replaced it with a 1/2W zener and 2N3055 transistor.

Also knocked out was a computer plugged into the same outlet. I believe the lightning bolt was parallel (roughly parallel) to our long building. Its high current induced a destructive surge in the intercom wiring, but not necessarily the mains wiring.

Can a bolt(s) of lightning destroy 10 adjacent streetlights at once?

Lightning is sometimes one bolt, or sometimes we see many bolts simulataneously jaggedly penetrating their way to the earth......either way, we call it a single "lightning strike".
Can one lightning strike destroy say ten adjacent streetlights, say 20 metres apart?

Or would all the lightning bolts go through just one streetlight pole?

Also, Could a lightning strike destroy 100 adjacent streetlights with one strike?

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https://www.edaboard.com/showthread.php?t=372992

...woops sorry, i ve just realised i asked this before, my sincere apologies.....i think the fact that the answers were extremly helpful, but could not come up with an answer, (i know its a very tough one indeed) meant that mentally i still thought i had never asked the question.
My apologies

Not and expert on lightning but I believe it's highly likely that one strike can take out many lights. I believe what Brad was alluding to was the polarization of the strike. I read on one site that horizontal cloud to cloud strikes induce higher voltages on horizontal wires such as power lines. If the strike is also parallel to the line the induced voltage is higher yet. Whereas vertical strikes induce higher voltages on vertical objects e.g. VHF antenna. I don't believe the induced voltages will be as high as a direct strike but the effects are much more frequent. There maybe sometimes hundreds of strikes in a storm and even though there not direct hits there still inducing these spikes on the line which take there toll on electronics. I've read that lightning can induce spikes on lines over a mile away. Like I said before I'm not and expert on lightning and this just information that I've gathered from other sites. The internet is a powerful tool but you have to be wary of the information source.

I thought this YouTube video was interesting. Search " lightning strikes streetlight twice- wraps like a snake". From the yellowish color of the light I don't think it's and LED but how in the world did it survive. I'm not sure if it even blinked.

Hi,

Not sure if it helps: During a heavy storm, lightning struck what I guess was one of the poles, the last on the line is the closest to the house and is maybe 30 metres away. I wish I had been able to video it, a ...??? "mini lightning bolt" surged out of a bathroom plug, maybe 10 cm long. I might be wrong, but that was the only source I could think of it entering the house wiring from.

What i found most interesting about the video was that the lightning bolt stayed continuous on the outside of the pole. I would think that the bolt would strike the highest point and then travel through the metal pole. Its probably lucky for the light that it did take this alternate path otherwise it surely would have been toast.

Consider the original question: let us see how the thing works.

1. The clouds on top can be considered one of the charged plate of a capacitor. The earth surface is the other one at the (naturally) ground potential. The air is the dielectric. The electric field becomes high but has no effect on the electronics because a const electric field induces ZERO potential.

2. The electric light pole can be considered as a pin put into the dielectric. The electric field close to this lamp post is far from uniform and provides a point for breakdown. Still everything within the metal body does not see any effect.

3. The moment the dielectric breakdown takes place a high current flows and electric fields are no more uniform and produces high induced voltage. If the field gradient is sufficient to induce a high voltage over a small distance of (say 1-3mm) then the component can fail.

4. Once the discharge is initiated, it is going to follow the path of least resistance. That discharges the capacitor (unfortunately the cloud is not a simple metal plate at a high potential) takes place and the system is reset. The next discharge may take place at a completely different point.

5. The dielectric strength of air depends on pressure. Hence the discharge always originates from the top (some stray ion may help start the process). The damage to the electronics is basically due to a high potential induced by high current discharge (dI/dt).