Why is it that it’s safe to sit inside the car during a thunderstorm?
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Answer- your car is a faraday cage, if it gets struck by lightning it takes the path of least resistance and shocks the outside of your car to the ground. You don’t get shocked
Lightning tends to strike the area with the least resistance, so it would likely pick buildings over cars or air if it has a chance, depending on the circumstance, and if it does strike a car it tends to follow the metal frame down to the tires and then to the ground instead of going through the car directly
Lightning is electricity flowing between the ground below you and the sky above you. To do this it must overcome the air that’s in the way and split the molecules apart.
However, in a metal car, the electrons move freely. No molecules need to be split apart, so the lightning moves through it easily and travels unimpeded towards where it ‘wants’ to go.
Since the metal is easy to pass through but air is very difficult, the electricity will follow the metal for as much of its path as possible. If the metal gives it an easy path around your body, it’ll take that path.
Lightning is electricity.
Electricity follows the path of least resistance.
The metal frame and body of the car conduct electricity MUCH better than your body does, so as a result – speaking in plain electrical terms – MOST of the electricity will go through the body of the car rather than through your body.
Then there’s also an electrical phenomenon called “skin effect”.
Skin effect is the tendency of high-frequency bursts of electricity to travel along the outside of a conductor rather than through the whole conductor equally. Well, a lightning strike lasts only about 30 millionths of a second, so it’s basically high-frequency. And so this is also concentrating the current toward the outside of the car rather than the inside.
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