when lightning hits water why don't fish die

We think that those fish probably don't get hit much since there are usually trees or something that would attract the lightning. I love the story, but I don't believe lightning is very harmful to marine animals. And not just theoretically dangerous; we're talking 10 to 20 people in the U.S. a year suffer injuries while messing around with household water during a storm [source: O'Connor]. For much the same reason that lightning striking an aircraft does not kill all the passengers! Well, fish can be electrocuted by lightning, but it doesn't happen very frequently. Plus, the ocean is so large that there is far more empty water than water filled with fish. Physics has the answer. I've been surfing when the water was hit by lightning and all I felt was a warm tingly feeling. We know that fish in creeks are in very shallow water and should be zapped by lightning pretty well if it was to hit the water. When lightning strikes the sea, some of the fish nearby will die. But don't be mistaken about this one. When lightning strikes the the sea why don't all the fish die? Like metal, water is a good conductor, so it encourages the electrical current to travel over its surface rather than delve underneath, the same way a Faraday cage protects its contents from harmful shocks. If a fish is near the lightning strike, it would die, but the electricity doesn't travel far enough to kill much. When lightning strikes a body of water, what happens is simple. But the electricity will spread out very quickly, so further out from where the lightning hit, the fish will only feel a tingle. Even still, lightning does strike the water sometimes.Why doesn't that kill fish by the thousands? It really is dangerous to bathe during a thunderstorm. A fish in the open ocean faces a different situation. The fish need to be close to the surface, for one, and fish generally don't get close to the surface of water, especially during storms. This is because seawater is a good conductor of electricity, and lightning contains a lot! https://www.hoax-slayer.net/lightning-hits-water-video-debunked There are a couple factors. What happens when lightning hits the sea, asks Justin Parkinson. The fish need to be close to the surface, for one, and fish generally don't get close to the surface of water, especially during storms. Water is a good conductor, and a lake or the ocean has a lot of it, so the current density flowing through any chunk of water is not very great. The electric charge doesn’t penetrate far into the water. Instead, it spreads along the surface, discharging horizontally. The ocean is very, very large and electricity quickly dissipates in the water. There are a couple factors. It's "easier" for the current to flow around the fish than it is to flow through the fish. Well, fish can be electrocuted by lightning, but it doesn't happen very frequently. What Happens When Lightning Hits Water? 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