You should avoid showering when it’s lightning and wait until at least 30 minutes after the last thunder before using the shower or other running water.

Quick Scoop

  • Lightning can travel through a home’s plumbing and water, including metal pipes and the water inside them.
  • If lightning strikes your home or nearby infrastructure, the electrical current can move along pipes and into showers, taps, and drains, creating a real risk of electric shock.
  • Health and safety experts, including emergency doctors and national health outlets, generally say don’t shower, bathe, or use running water during a thunderstorm.
  • The overall chance of being hit is low, but using water at that moment increases your risk compared to just staying away from plumbing and electronics.

Why showering during lightning is risky

When lightning strikes a building, the current looks for paths that conduct electricity easily: wiring, metal structures, and plumbing.

Pipes (and the water inside them) conduct electricity well, so a strike can send a surge through the plumbing system and into fixtures like your shower or tap.

Experts explain that this can cause electric shock or burns if you’re in direct contact with running water at the time.

Reports and case examples include people injured in the shower when lightning energy traveled in through walls and plumbing and even blew tiles off a shower area.

In short: being wet, barefoot, and touching metal fixtures tied into the plumbing gives lightning an easier path through your body if your home is struck.

What official guidance says

Health and safety agencies and hospital systems give very similar advice:

  • Do not shower or bathe during a thunderstorm.
  • Avoid washing dishes, doing laundry, or even washing hands under running water while thunder is audible.
  • Avoid corded phones and electronics plugged into the wall; lightning can also travel through wiring.
  • Stay away from windows and doors and stick to the interior of your home during intense storms.

One emergency physician notes you should wait at least 30 minutes after the last thunder before showering, because lightning can strike as far as about 10 miles from the storm cloud.

“But is it really that common?”

  • Globally, lightning kills an estimated tens of thousands of people per year and injures many more, though only a fraction of these cases are indoors.
  • Indoor lightning injuries via plumbing are uncommon but well-documented; safety organizations still warn against any plumbing use because the consequences can be severe when it does happen.
  • Some articles emphasize that while the absolute risk is low , it’s an “easy win” to just pause showers and water use for the duration of the storm.

So forums and news discussions you see about “is this an overblown myth?” are usually reacting to that low probability, but experts still come down on the side of avoiding showers during storms as a sensible precaution.

Practical safety tips during a storm

If thunder is audible:

  1. Skip the shower or bath until 30 minutes after the last thunder.
  1. Avoid:
    • Showering or bathing
    • Washing dishes, doing laundry, or running water from taps
    • Touching metal plumbing fixtures unnecessarily
  1. Unplug non-essential electronics and avoid using corded devices.
  1. Stay away from windows and metal doors; stay in interior rooms if the storm is intense.

A simple example: if a storm rolls through in the evening, wait until thunder has stopped for at least half an hour, then take your shower—your daily routine is only slightly delayed, but your risk is dramatically reduced.

Bottom line (TL;DR)

  • Should you shower when it’s lightning?
    No—wait until the storm has passed and you haven’t heard thunder for about 30 minutes before showering or using running water.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.