Is there a rationale from science to avoid taking a shower during a thunderstorm?
In: Chemistry
This was something I’ve never really heard of before so I found this quote sourced from CNN:
>The CDC recommends avoiding all water during a thunderstorm, including showering, bathing, washing dishes, and washing your hands. The CDC also says that the risk of lightning traveling through plumbing might be less with plastic pipes than with metal pipes.
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>Every year, 10 to 20 people in the U.S. sustain lightning strike injuries from interactions with household water during a storm. Even if your chances of actually dying from a lightning strike while showering are remote, getting struck by lightning causes immediate injury and, potentially, lifelong health consequences.
This sounds like a fair observation, but 20 people in the entire country with a population of 331.9 million means that your chances of getting struck by lightning in your shower are somewhere around 0.0000006%. While not taking a shower during a thunderstorm is a pretty non-consequential thing to do, I personally wouldn’t worry about it.
For context, here are the percentages of leading causes of death out of the total US population each year:
* Heart disease: 0.17%
* Cancer: 0.13%
* Traffic accidents: 0.05%
* Stroke: 0.03%
* Gun violence: 0.01%
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