Lightning/Thunder Delay

[ozzy6900]

You can argue about meters all you want but most leagues that I work with will not spend the money for a meter. What needs to be changed is the stupidity of coaches and parents who cannot understand that lightning causes thunder. In the daylight hours, you normally hear thunder long before you see the lightning (here in CT). This year, our association adopted the 30 minute rule for all games that our umpires officiate. There is a 30 minute wait after thunder or the sighting of lightning. If another bolt is seen or clap of thunder heard, the clock starts again. What pisses me off is hearing the idiot coaches and parents complaining that there is no lightning (bit the thunder is rolling like a rock slide), so why are we stopping the game?

I was doing an evaluation at a JV game last month when we heard thunder and the officials stopped the game as our association mandated. About 15 minutes in, the coaches and parents started getting on the officials. I took out my cell phone and brought up the radar and showed the officials that the cell was moving away and a small rain cell was going to pass to the North. The officials were just about to restart the game after the 30 minute wait but that tiny rain cell ran into a cold front and blew up into a full blown storm in a matter of minutes. Without warning, a bolt of lightning hit the cell tower to our East and the officials called the game. We had to scramble out of there fast as hell as it got very bad, very quick. The way the storm blew up, if those players were on the field, we would have been calling ambulances as bolts were hitting all around us.

I have had the unfortunate experience of watching a good friend get blown apart when a bold of lightning hit him as we were running off the beach. We didn't know much about the effects of lightning other than it was bright, it looked cool raking across the sky and it caused thunder. What more did we need to know? We were only 8 years old and invincible!?!