Sago Mine Explosion Lightning, Revisited
The owner of the Sago Mine maintains that lightning was the cause of the explosion which killed a dozen miners in West Virginia this January. But today he clarified the theory, saying that lightning hit a tree, jumped to a power line, then to a conveyor belt and through the mesh in the wall connected to the area where the explosion occurred. He characterizes his explanation as a hypothesis.
I can tell you from seeing lightning damage up close, it can certainly do strange things, and this explanation sounds plausible -- we will probably never know what really happened. When lightning travels through metal, it leaves little traces.
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WeatherMatrix
AccuWeather Meteorologist and Social Media Manager Jesse Ferrell covers extreme weather and the intersection of meteorology and social media.
