We ve never had reports of a lot of dead fish floating to the surface after a lightning stroke. This indicates that the electrical charge must weaken fairly quickly after lightning hits the water, he said. The assumption is that the charge spreads out as an expanding sphere. In this case the charge would weaken rapidly as the area of the sphere increases. If anyone knows of any recent research on this topic, I d love to hear about it.
Lightning is so fascinating because there is still a lot to be learned about it.
Lightning strikes on water will kill fish or other life forms. Although distilled water is a very poor conductor of electricity, the water as we know is full of minerals held in suspension. These minerals and their concentration make water conduct electricity. I searched the Web for information and did not find any documentation related to your question. So I will shoot from my hip lightning is a violent discharge of electro-static voltage generated by clouds moving rapidly through the atmosphere.