Storms, in addition to being amazing meteorological phenomena, can also become very dangerous if you cannot access a safe place to protect yourself from lightning, which is what happened in Norway. There, a Hardangervidda National Park ranger was found 323 reindeer dead. And no, it's not science fiction, although it might as well sound like it.
Apparently, as he said, it is the first time that a storm has killed so many animals, so he does not know for sure why it happened or how.
Some will think that it has been the work of the changes that are taking place in the climate, but the reality is that it is an unsolved mystery. Even so, the reindeer that were in the park most likely did not have time to look for a den or shelter, but why? How are rays formed and at what speed do they hit the ground?
The rays are produced between clouds and the earth's surface, or between two clouds, due to the interaction between positive and negative particles, which occurs above 5000 meters in height. There the hail particles collide with ice crystals and, in doing so, the particles acquire a positive charge and the crystals negative charge. Thus, ice crystals, being lighter than hail, are dragged to the top of vertically developing clouds, the Cumulonimbus. In this way, at a height of between 8 and 10km there is the positive charge, and about 5km the negative one, thus producing an electric discharge. And it only takes a fraction of a second to hit the land (or the sea)!
But it is still impossible to know how lightning could have killed more than 300 reindeer, although some have tried to give an explanation, such as John Jensenius, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Institute of the United States, who said that it was likely that the lightning fell on an animal and that, as they were in a group, the current that occurs on the ground has killed them all. In any case, according to Kjartan Knutsen, an official of the Norwegian Environment Agency, On Friday, August 26, 2016, there were big storms in the area, but they had never seen anything like it before.
Note: In order not to hurt the sensitivity of the reader, it has been decided not to put the images of the reindeer corpses. In the event that they want to see each other, it can be done click here.