Hacking the Planet, One Weather Phenomenon at a Time

LEC feature to air on The Weather Channel documentary series Thursday, March 14

Can you really control Mother Nature with proper Lightning Protection Systems ? With various natural, and mostly disastrous, weather patterns in our paths, The Weather Channel is determined to find out by exploring the ins and outs of weather, developing ways to manage weather and “hacking the planet” one weather phenomenon at a time.

In order to explore how to hack into lightning, The Weather Channel came to LEC. We are featured in the second episode of the series, “Hacking the Planet.”

In the episode, John Rennie, a science writer, editor and lecturer, goes on a quest to study theories about how to harness the power of lightning, as well as to explore ways to better protect against it. In order to ‘hack out’ these lightning facts, he visited Mountain Village in Telluride, Colorado.

The Rocky Mountain ski resort hosts millions of visitors each year, and lightning is a very serious threat to their lift system which is also a year-round public transit system. In order to protect the resort’s equipment, Telluride called on LEC to install it’s Dissipation Array System (DAS™) on top of every ski tower along the gondola system. This charge transfer technology has an almost perfect record of preventing direct lightning strikes within the protected area. In the episode, John defies lightning and examines the lightning protection systems atop the mountain.