Lightning rods...

[Externet]

Hi, good day to all.

Two identical houses (materials, height, shape) are next to each other but only one has a lightning rod installed.

Other houses in the immediate neighborhood have no lightning rods.  A block north, and a block south, and a block east and at a block west there is houses with lightning rods installed.

An electric storm is more probable to strike the lightning rod on the house that has one or the roof on the identical next to it ?

In other words, a lightning rod attracts and conducts electrical strikes to ground or forms a zone that prevents the lightning from striking ? 

 

 

[swansont]

Lightning rods provide a direct path to ground. They don’t prevent strikes; they make it far more likely that the strike will hit the rods rather than sensitive infrastructure.

AFAIK they have a spatial limit; I doubt an adjacent house in a suburban neighborhood will be protected. I was involved with a 5000 sq ft building that has at least a half dozen “spikes” which suggests that one or two would not suffice.

[John Cuthber]

One would work if it was tall enough.
 

[studiot]

On 1/26/2021 at 4:30 PM, swansont said:

Lightning rods provide a direct path to ground. They don’t prevent strikes; they make it far more likely that the strike will hit the rods rather than sensitive infrastructure.

 

To emphasise this, the degree of 'protection' depends upon the nature and quality of the grounding.

Inadequate or wrongly placed grounding can lead to damage in its own right.

[Externet]

Thank you, swansont.  Agree with the direct path to ground.

The explanation at the beginning with the charged cloud? layering sketched at a certain height is not as convincing as the demonstration at time stamp 4:15

----> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhu5pIrPw7U (it is worth seeing, not a waste of time)

 

The NASA launch pad may show a concept malfunction, if strikes prefer the rocket :

When surrounded by lightning rod poles.  Something is not making sense, besides the unpredictability of the phenomena.

 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Externet
Doubled image corrected.

[Klaynos]

There was an incident a few years ago of two fatalities on the Brecon beacons on two different peaks. It is thought likely that the same stroke caused both fatalities with two different strike locations. I don't have the reference to hand at the moment. I always think of lightning rods as adding protection if you're likely to be struck but not altering your likeliehood of being struck by much.