Consider some camper sleeping near a lightning struck tree. Those
sleeping tangent to tree were unaffected. Those sleeping pointed at
that tree required medical treatment. To understand this, first return
to what electricity is.

Lightning creates an electrical path from charges inside a cloud to
charges maybe 5 miles distant on earth. Will lightninig conduct 5
miles diagonally to earthborne charges? Of course not. An
electrically shorter path is 3 miles down and 4 miles horizontal
through earth.

Where electricity found campers sleeping pointed to the tree, that
electrically shorter path was into a body via feet and back to earth
via head. This explains why some campers were harmed and others were
not. That camping example is also why four legged animals are at
higher risk when lightning strikes a nearby tree.

So what happens in WV? Geology is why CG lightning (per
thunderstorm) is highest in WV. Specualation says lightning will
strike more conductive (upturned) geology formations which acts like a
ground rod - dissipate charges deep into the earth to make more
conductive paths to those distant earthborne charges.

Let's say a mine has conductive pipes in contact with that more
conductive geology. So now an excellent path is down to that mine,
then miles horizontal via pipes to where earthborne charges are
located.

Meanwhile, lightning does not strike a highest object. Lightning
strikes the best conducting path to distant charges. Often this more
conductive geology is on the side of a mountain (not top) or down in a
valley between two mountains. In cases such as the World Trade Center
and Empire State Building, a better conductive path is at building's
top which explains why they suffered 40 and 25 direct strikes per year.

Lacy wrote:
I have heard about this recently and I am wondering if lightning can travel
260 feet through the ground without some sort of conducting material? I have
never really even heard of something like this.I know how electricity
behaves according to ohms law, etc. and according to those Laws it isn't
possible due to the high resistance of the earth (at least not going into
the earth that far).

Besides, electrical item are "earth-grounded" in order to pass a lightning
surge safely to ground in order to dissipate its effects.

The little I know about lightning is the fact that it will strike the
tallest object around because it is closer to the cloud and the path of
least resistance ,like say, a tree. One theory that I have heard is that
lightning actually originates at the ground level and travel upward to the
cloud. a highly negative tree passed over by a highly positively charged
cloud. and the lightning jump from negative tree to positive cloud.

I really don't know that much about the physics of meteorology. So let me
have some opinions on this and let me know if I am in error.