Is there a rationale from science to avoid taking a shower during a thunderstorm?
In: Chemistry
Inherently no. However in the event your house catches fire you will be naked and need to evacuate. In the event the power goes out you will be in a wet shower in the dark and at a higher risk of falling/injury.
Mythbusters tested this and provided a good general public explanation. Season 3, episode 17.
The risk is lightning can strike the ground outside of your house, get picked up by the water mains, and enter your home’s plumbing system and water supply. If you’re in the path of that water supply then you become part of the electricity’s goal to spread out and you could get zapped.
This is less common with the rise in plex/plastic plumbing, but the water mains that enter your home are still metal and the water itself can still be fairly conductive depending on how mineral heavy the water is so there’s still a risk.
Also note that by this point in the path and with your skins high resistance the odds of this zap outright killing you are kind of low, but it could cause some burns, nerve damage, or if you’re standing it could make you spaz and smack your head into something harder.
So just be safe and delay showers when a storm is passing by.
It was more of a concern when many houses weren’t grounded properly and had more conductive plumbing.
My mother said we couldn’t take a shower or talk on the phone during a storm. Because that’s how the lightning gets you, you see.
If the lightning does go through the water, will all the soap covering me create a skin effect and conduct around me, or will it still go through my body? There’s a lot of good questions you can ask here.
There is nothing quite like taking a shower, hearing the tornado sirens go off and losing power all at the same time. I do not recommend it. You’re naked, wet, soapy, in the dark and there is a freaking tornado coming. Not the ideal situation.
The shower is slippery.
Thunderstorms can cause power outages.
If the lights go out, your likelihood of slipping in the shower becomes far more likely.
It has nothing to do with electrocution
There is some rationale from science about avoiding a shower during a thunder storm but I think it starts to fall apart now that most plumbing is no longer made from metal. Back when most plumbing was made from copper/lead it was entirely possible that the system could get energised if it was hit by lightning which would put someone in the shower at high risk of being shocked (water tends to be conductive as well). These days a lot of plumbing is made from PVC piping which makes it far less likely that the path to earth that includes you is the path of least resistance for the lightning strike.
That said, I would still follow the “avoid taking a shower during a thunderstorm” advice because I don’t want to roll the dice and be that one person that proves that water flowing through PVC piping is good enough for lightning to discharge through.
I live in an older house that has primarily copper piping. And I got zapped shutting off my taps when I was showering during a thunderstorm. It wasn’t much — maybe a little stronger than your average static electricity zap — but it was enough that I won’t shower during a storm anymore.
It’s important to note that it didn’t hit me just because I was wet or in the shower. I just happened to touch the tap at exactly the wrong time to get a little zap delivered to my hand.
That said, it’s probably less of a problem in newer houses that rely more on PVC than copper for their piping.
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