Do you turn off computer during thunderstorm

Post Reply New Topic

Its all a matter of how much precaution you want to take. Honestly if your house takes a direct hit from lightning, it probably won't even matter if you have everything unplugged. It will still get fried.

I unplug my laptop and run off the battery if the lightning is anywhere near close. Losing my data due to a fried computer would be annoying, even though I do have a secondary backup. Unplugging the modem/router, printer, and other delicate electronic appliances is too much of a pain in the butt to do every time there's a thunderstorm. If the house takes a direct hit a lot of your stuff will get fried. Not much you can do about it. It happened to my parents house twice in my lifetime but they live near the top of a hill. The last time it totally destroyed the sprinkler system and garage door opener. The sprinkler system box had scorch marks all over it.

Last edited by marshall on 11 Jun 2013, 8:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

That’s amazing. It seems lightning makes all the sap in the tree boil instantly, causing it to burst. I’ve never seen the real thing, though.

No. If it's unplugged, nothing can happen to it unless the bolt comes through the house. Every house should have lightening rods to prevent that from happening.

I use a power strip. Generally, just turning it off is more than enough physical disconnect to be safe. The bolt would have to hit the power line itself to jump the switch (very, very rare but possible).

Surge suppressors won't protect against a direct strike on the power line...too much voltage to contain. They do fine with brownouts and surges from other causes (even if caused by storms).

It's usually trees that are old or have moist rot inside that explode like that. A healthy tree doesn't have a lot of moisture deep inside, only in the living layer that's just below the bark.

I was once visiting some friends of my parents who had a cottage in Vermont. I was a teenager at the time. I wasn't at the house at the time but I saw the aftermath of a lightning bolt that traveled into the house. There was a picture hanging on the wall above a bed. There was a scorch mark about an inch in diameter surrounding the hook that the picture was hung from. The glass was completely gone from the picture frame and small shards of glass were everywhere in the room. Some pieces of glass were buried several inches into the mattress and some were stuck to the opposite wall. What happened was the air space inside the frame expanded suddenly causing the glass to explode. Strangely there was no burn marks at all on the picture itself. The heating must have been so brief that it didn't have time to burn the picture itself. It was just weird and scary. If anyone had been taking a nap in that bed they would have been badly injured from the flying glass.

I did in earlier times. We live in an old house and the electricity cables were 50 years old and aditional we only had one circuit for the entire kitchen and living room. Because of that we had often blackout, specially during thunder storms. (And exploding lamps a dozend of times, a ruined television screen, a crashed mainboard, a smoking lamp socket.... -.-)

We first secured all gears with electric devices that made sure, that the electricity wasnt raising and lowering wildly all the time and that our devices got supplied with the same amount of power all the time. Luckily we have now two additional new circuits for the living room (one for the PCs, one for the rest) so until now, it all worked well and we dare to play PC now during thunder storms.

i do not turn my computer off in thounder stoms as i just run it with always the surge protector

Thats what I was thinking. I was just trying to make the point, that you can take all the precautions you want, but there is no guarantee that it will work. You just have to use your own judgment on how much protection you need.

Living less dangerously is like half the fun, but in this case maybe the latter would not be so self-assured either.
What can I suggest? maybe an eon adaptor if it is in the case of a telly but laptop wise well its easy isn't it? make sure you put the battery back in, then quickly shut turn off the mains.

I would turn off my iPad if it's a serious thunderstorm. If I'm in the process of charging it, I would unplug it right away, because I know how dangerous lightning can be.