Lightning Protection & Safety
This page covers how to properly ground weather instrumentation for direct/indirect CG lightning as well as general lightning safety.
The key important fact to take away from this is to never ground a grounding rod in asphalt/concrete. Install a lightning rod (made of copper or aluminum) to the tallest part(s) of the structure and connect a copper cable from it to the grounding rod. Make sure this cable is not secured on or near anything that contains metal or electrical components. To install the grounding rod properly, make sure it is a minimum of 10 inches in length and is almost entirely hammered into the ground (only top inch should be visible to connect the copper cable to). After that, the lightning rod system should be complete. For weather stations, make sure ALL instruments are grounded properly to the data logger and that the data logger itself is properly grounded to the Earth. Refer to the image (below right) for additional protective devices that can be installed.
