Lightning and the sea?

Question

how come when lightning strikes the sea no fish die

Answer 1

Fish in the immediate area will die but salt water is a poor conductor of electricity and the energy dissipates so quickly.  But yes they do die.

Answer 2

They most certainly do die if close enough.

Answer 3

because the electrical power is dissipated over a large area

Answer 4

Yes, they do die.

They just float off and get eaten or something

Answer 5

I have been at sea for nearly 50 years and in many thunderstorms and I have never seen dead fishes floating up after the lightning. But when I worked in the North Sea with explosives for the oil industry, whenever we detonated them on the seabed, about half an hour later, we took an inflatable dinghy to pick the dead fishes, mostly cod. To find them, we only had to find the circling seagulls and be there before them! :-)

Answer 6

fish do get fried if they happen to be in the area of the strike, but because the ocean is vast and lightning is dispersed into the water for only a very short distance, most fish are only stunned.

Answer 7

They do, actually. but i think what your thinking is that the lighting would electrify the whole sea, but as you can see if you think about it, thats downright riculous. lighting is strong, but its not all powerful force. drop a toaster in a lake, it will not electrify the whole lake.

Answer 8

because the sea is too larger mass to conduct such a tiny amount of energy when compared with the sea. Fish in the localised area of the strike would die but as someone has already said they'd be eaten, other fish wouldnt be harmed if swimming further away or deeper below the surface.

Answer 9

The electrical current gets grounded when it hits the sea (like the ground wire on some plugs).

But yes, some of them do die, if the electrical current reaches them (since the grounding can't be 100% effective).