Lightning Safety and Outdoor Sports Activities Sports officials must understand thunderstorms and lightning to ensure they make educated decisions on when to seek safety. Without this knowledge, officials base their decisions on personal experience and the desire to complete the activity. The National Weather Service recommends officials of organized sports have a lightning safety plan they follow without exception. The plan should give clear, specific safety guidelines to eliminate errors in judgment. The guidelines should address the following questions: When should activities be stopped? Where should people go for safety? When should activities be resumed? Who should monitor the weather and who decides when to stop activities? What should be done if someone is struck by lightning? Before an event, organizers should listen to the latest forecast to determine the likelihood of thunderstorms. A NOAA Weather Radio is a good source of up-to-date weather information. If thunderstorms are forecast, organizers should consider canceling or postponing the activity. Once people start to arrive at an event, the guidelines in the lightning safety plan should be followed. From: NWS
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 04:27:10 +0000