So what caused this to happen?
 

Yesterday I was sitting in the attic room on the PC, window was open, was raining quite hard and then there was (virtually at the same time) a clap of thunder and a lot of sparks by my pc :eek: though there was only the one clap of thunder, that was it.
Im thinking is residual static electricity from the lightning, so it must have been a close strike?
Had the tingles though it didnt hit the house, quite an interesting feeling :lol1: anyone else experienced a close call like this?

Tony:)

It wiped my HardDrive completely as I was booting up when lightning struck the house/close by.

It wiped your hard-drive mate, really !!

Folks on the golf course, many a near miss ...

Few years ago hit the house, tv and cable box fried. Hit House further down the road and caused a fire(hit boiler outlet) lucky owners were away. Needed a new kitchen and front door tho.

This is why I have a surge protecting plug for my computer and TV equipment.

Supposedly surge protection doesnt work with lightning strikes, just fries everything :( earthing works though :)

Tony:)

ive saw lightening set fire to wet ground on golf course, frightening really the power it has

A friends phone line got struck and it blew up his modem. People have been killed while using a corded phone during a thunderstorm. Safer with a cordless job :D

I was out cycling with a mate when I was a student and we sheltered at the bottom of a tree-lined bank (Cannock Chase) in a MASSIVE thunderstorm when a tree at the top got hit.

It did the whole exploding, crashing down around our ears thing and we bolted (ahem) for the shops 1/2 mile down the road as it seemed a far safer bet.

We'd actually watched a barn get hit and the roof blown off only a few minutes before, so you'd think we'd have got the hint.

(before anyone mentions not standing under a tree, it's standing under a TREE, we were at the bottom of a big bank which had hundreds of trees lining it)

Epic storm that was, when it was over we cycled back to Stafford and a couple of dips in the road were axle deep in water.