It’s really hot and wet outside these days. However, that is typically how summers go in this region. Scarcely an afternoon goes by without a sudden and violent thunderstorm rolling up and dumping rain and lightning. Afternoons like that make me a little nervous, because I had an experience a couple years ago that left my heating and air conditioning completely fried! The sad thing is, I had actually heard long before my air conditioning system was struck by lightning that it was a pretty good idea to turn off the air conditioning during a violent electrical storm. I guess I just decided to play the game of odds, because admittedly, they are in your favor when it comes to lightning strikes, but I lost! My house took a hit from a lightning bolt when everyone was home one Saturday afternoon. The bolt struck the outside components of my air conditioner and every component that had to do with electricity was completely fried. Plugs were even melted. The air conditioning system was not salvageable after that and it ended up costing us quite the exorbitant amount of money to get a new HVAC system. Almost immediately after that, we ended up installing a lightning rod on our house to try and mitigate any future strikes! So that’s why my advice to any air conditioning system owner is to simply shut off the AC during a bad storm. Keep it off for at least the duration of the most intense lightning. You’ll be glad that you did.