Avoid direct contact with other persons, get into a ditch or shallow depression if possible, crouch down with feet together and with your hands on your knees. Remove metal objects such as belts and jewelry. Count the seconds between the flash of lightning and the rumble of thunder, and divide by five, and you have the answer in miles. Sound travels at about 5 miles per second, so timing the interval between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder is a good indicator of how close you were to the actual strike. Martner, Brooks E. Wyoming Climate Atlas , University of Nebraska Press 1986.
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