SHEEMA – It was somber mood in Muhito Village in Kitagata Town Council, Sheema District as four juveniles from the same family who tragically succumbed to a lightning strike on Saturday, January 13, 2024 were laid to rest today.
The departed youngsters include Akankunda Sheila, 12; Mujuni Trevor, 9; Nahabwe Confort, 6 and Ainembabazi Lonet, 5, all grandchildren of Mzee Bintabara.
During the burial ceremony, shock and sorrow overwhelmed the mourners, with some finding it difficult to comprehend the magnitude of the tragedy.
Reverend Bernard Kenda, the curate of Kitagata Archdeaconry in West Ankole Diocese, presided over the sendoff service.
The unfortunate incident occurred when the four juveniles were struck by lightning amidst a heavy downpour that commenced on the afternoon of Saturday, January 13, 2024.
The entire community is now grappling with the profound loss and the heavy burden of grief that has befallen them.
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What is lightning?
Lightning is a giant spark of electricity in the atmosphere between clouds, the air, or the ground. In the early stages of development, air acts as an insulator between the positive and negative charges in the cloud and between the cloud and the ground.
When the opposite charges build up enough, this insulating capacity of the air breaks down and there is a rapid discharge of electricity that we know as lightning. The flash of lightning temporarily equalizes the charged regions in the atmosphere until the opposite charges build up again.
Lightning can occur between opposite charges within the thunderstorm cloud (intra-cloud lightning) or between opposite charges in the cloud and on the ground (cloud-to-ground lightning).
Lightning is one of the oldest observed natural phenomena on earth. It can be seen in volcanic eruptions, extremely intense forest fires, surface nuclear detonations, heavy snowstorms, in large hurricanes, and obviously, thunderstorms.
What causes lightning?
The creation of lightning is a complicated process. We generally know what conditions are needed to produce lightning, but there is still debate about exactly how a cloud builds up electrical charges, and how lightning forms. Scientists think that the initial process for creating charge regions in thunderstorms involves small hail particles called graupel that are roughly one quarter millimeter to a few millimeters in diameter and are growing by collecting even smaller supercooled liquid droplets.
When these graupel particles collide and bounce off of smaller ice particles, the graupel gains one sign of charge and the smaller ice particle gains the other sign of charge. Because the smaller ice particles rise faster in updrafts than the graupel particles, the charge on ice particles separates from the charge on graupel particles, and the charge on ice particles collects above the charge on graupel.
Laboratory studies suggest that graupel gains positive charge at temperatures a little colder than 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but gains negative charge at colder temperatures a little higher in the storm.
Scientists think the two largest charge regions in most storms are caused mainly by graupel carrying negative charge in the middle of the storm and ice particles carrying gained positive charge in the upper part of the storm.
However, a small positive charge region often is below the main negative charge region from graupel gaining positive charge at lower, warmer altitudes. Small ice particles that have collided with negative graupel in the lower region can contribute positive charge to the middle of the storm.
A conceptual model shows the electrical charge distribution inside deep convection (thunderstorms), developed by NSSL and university scientists. In the main updraft (in and above the red arrow), there are four main charge regions. In the convective region but outside the out draft (in and above the blue arrow), there are more than four charge regions.
Where does lightning strike?
Most, if not all, lightning flashes produced by storms start inside the cloud. If a lightning flash is going to strike ground, a channel develops downward toward the surface.
When it gets less than roughly a hundred yards of the ground, objects like trees and bushes and buildings start sending up sparks to meet it.
When one of the sparks connects the downward developing channel, a huge electric current surge rapidly down the channel to the object that produced the spark.
Tall objects such as trees and skyscrapers are more likely than the surrounding ground to produce one of the connecting sparks and so are more likely to be struck by lightning.
Mountains also make good targets. However, this does not always mean tall objects will be struck. Lightning can strike the ground in an open field even if the tree line is close by.
