LancesWorld.com Journal

So you're out in the park on a sunny day when, all of a sudden and with no expectation, the sky fills with clouds and a storm erupts. Thunder and lightning are all around you, and the rain is relentless. You see an oak grove and you run for cover. Bad idea! Apparently your friendly oak tree is sixteen times more likely to be hit by lightning than that beech tree twenty feet away. The reason for this is that the oak tree has a vertical root system which brings it closer to groundwater than a beech tree, which has a very expansive, horizontal root system.

By the way, if you're a man, you are 4 times more likely to be struck by lightning than your female companions. So, with some simple math, we can calculate that if you're a man under an oak tree you're 64 times more likely to get hit by lightning than a woman under a beech tree. Good to know.