[mauvehaus]

I've heard the same advice about crouching, but have never been in a position where I've tried it. When canoeing, the advice I've heard is get to shore and crouch on your PFD for additional insulation.

For sake of comparison, The article says a lightning strike releases about 500 MJ of energy. Wikipedia says a "standard" stick of dynamite contains about 1 MJ of energy[0]. In my estimation standing 30m from the (very rough) equivalent 500 sticks of dynamite going off counts as damn close.

I realize this is a very rough comparison, but I'd guess that it's surely within an order of magnitude or two for comparison purposes. Joules are joules, but how they're released might be wildly different, we're way outside the realm of my expertise. I wouldn't want to be 30m from 50 sticks of dynamite going off, or even 5.

I don't know how the sound would compare between dynamite, but I agree with your observation that a lightning strike at 30m is a hell of a noise.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite#Form

[wDcBKgt66V8WDs]

Yeah I mean 30m is close from the perspective of something that ridiculous happening, but my point is the phenomenon of electrons moving to the point that you can actually sense it happening is localized to path of the lightning strike. Hence 30m is not close.