Camping in a thunderstorm?

[AngryFeet]

We are off to Wellington Country Park on Saturday and there is a thunderstorm forecast that night/early next morning. The campsite is in the woods. What are the risks? Is it safe to sleep in a tent in a storm? Our tent has minimal metal (fibreglass poles and small bit of metal linking the sections of pole).

[YellowDinosaur]

Will you have your car with you? If the storm is right over head you can get yourself in your car until it passes...

[AngryFeet]

Yes we will. How do we know when it is right over us?

[chemenger]

So long as thunderstorms don't bother you (I love them) then they are spectacular in a tent. Don't expect to sleep though it - the rain itself can be very loud and you will feel the thunder and see the lightning through closed eyes!

You do need to be sure your tent is completely waterproof.

As long as you are not camping under a single tall tree I think the chances of being hit are vanishingly small, but I am not an expert.

[YellowDinosaur]

It's directly overhead when the lightening billy strikes at the sane time as the thunder. Light travels faster than sound so if they're not occurring at exactly the same time it's not overhead. If you count in seconds from when the lightening strikes until you hear the thunderbolt that gives you an approximate distance away in miles that the storm is.

I can count on one hand the times in my 40 year life I've been directly under the storm so it wouldn't put me off. Just get in the car and sit it out if it comes within a couple of miles

[FourArms]

I'm worried about this too :( Forecast for Cornwall next week has lots of lightning symbols on it :( :(

[bico]

We had a spectacular thunderstorm last night in eastern Scotland. Camping in a bell tent so we made sure that nothing was touching the metal pole but other than that we were fine. It wasn't overhead though, closest was 7 seconds between lightning and thunder. Our tent was under a group of low trees.