Lightning

[Cookiely]

Last week their was a severe thunderstorm and I was on the porch. I smelled something awful (I could go the rest of my life and not smell it again- it was gross)
in the air and also the smell of wood burning which I assumed was from the wild fires in the area. Then my hair stood up on my neck. My question is was it from the lightning that had struck or was it from lightning that was about to strike. I googled and I got confused by the explanations.
Thanks.
Cookiely

[brunota2003]

Typically before an extremely close by lightning strike, if you are outside, your hair will stand up on end. As for the smells, I do not know.

[dizzyfish]

My guess would be that the smell was from a combination of the fires in your area and a previous lightning strike.

Did you get a really close lightning strike after your hair stood up? I have had that happen, and hopefully it won't happen again!

[x-y-no]

I've experience one really close strike (about 20 feet.) My hair definitely stood up before it hit, but no particular smell associated with it (other than smoke from the tree, which caught fire.)

[Tstormwatcher]

Your hair standing up on you indicates a high electrical charge close to you. I have heard that people have smelled foul air right before being hit by lightning. If this happens again I would highly recommend you get inside pronto.

[Downdraft]

Couple of things to point out. While the eyes play tricks on you the typical cloud-ground strike starts from the ground as a feeder and connects ABOVE the earth to the trailer coming down from the cloud thus completing the circuit. Remember that lightning itself is 5 times hotter than the surface of the Sun and that lightning creates ozone which does not have a pleasant smell. That might have been what you smelled. Not all feeders from earth connect to trailers from the cloud though. You may have been close enough to feel the electrical charge of a feeder and if you were that close your very lucky it didn't connect to the cloud. A porch offers protection from the rain but absolutely no protection from a lightning strike. In fact, your car with all the windows up is a safer place to be than your house. One of the few times in severe weather I advocate being in the car over being inside a normally constructed residential structure. By the way it's not the tires that protect you from the strike it's the close shell of the car that allows the charge to car spread over the shell of the vehicle which is why the windows have to be tightly closed.

[ladygatorslayer]

I've witnessed St. Elmo's Fire while out boating in the Gulf. Hair stood up, no foul smell that I recall, then again, the shiny blue halo that formed at the tip of an antenna along with the buzzing sound of electricity was more noticable, lol. That, was some freaky stuff!!!

[Skintback26]

I was at my sons t-ball game one day when lightning was in thw area.I was sitting in the dugout,when all of a sudden the third base coach's hair started sticking straight up.Thats when I yelled out that we should get the kids inside.That was an errie feeling,cause I could feel it too.