On one hand, it would obviously attract lightning, being a tall-ish conducter it would attract it, but cars and the like are said to be (relatively) safe specifically because they direct lightning around you to the ground. I imagine it would be similar to that.
That’s wrong. Height is more important than material because air is a fairly good isolator, but electricity will always run the path of least resistance, which will invariably be the metal gazebo if they’re close enough.
That being said, a metal gazebo can also act like a Faraday cage. The reason why a car is safe is because it’s a metal cage, electricity will flow more easily through the metal than through you so you’re safe. Wood might be less conductive than you, so the path of least resistance might go through you, making it less safe. Also trees are alive and have water inside so they’re way more conducting than a wooden gazebo.
All of this being said, being near lighting when it strikes is not safe, as the electricity dissipates on the ground it creates massive electrical difference in the ground, and the least resistance path might be to go up your body and down the other side. Curiously if your feet are at roughly the same distance from the lighting strike you’re less likely to be electrocuted as the difference in electrical potential will be small, however if one feet is significantly closer than the other, as if you were running away from the lighting the electrical potential difference might be enough to kill you.
hint: rubber is a good insulator.
No, in fact cars would be safer (about lighting strikes) if they had metal wheels or some metal touching the ground. Rubber is similarly insulated as air, meaning that they’re almost invisible to lightings.
The reason why you’re safe in a car is because it’s a Faraday cage, the electricity flows around the body of the car instead of through you. That being said, exactly because the car has rubber feet it can hold quite a large charge still, so if you’re ever in a car that got hit by a lighting and the car doesn’t have a discharge (it’s common in some dry countries to have a metal chain or wire touching the ground to avoid getting shocked by your car due to static electricity), your safest bet is to touch the car against a metal pole before getting off. Because let’s say that the tires can insulate up to 10KV, the lighting might not have fully discharged and the car still be 10KV more charged than the ground, and when you touch the ground with one feet while the other is in the car you become the path of least resistance.
Not according to the USA National Weather Service:
You are reading one thing and interpreting another. Both me and that link told you height is more important. What that link is telling you is that a wood gazebo in the middle of nowhere will attract lightning the same way a metal gazebo of the same height in the middle of nowhere will, so you’re not less safe in a metal gazebo than in a wooden one in isolation of one another. What I’m telling you is that if you put them side by side the metal one will be struck nearly 100% of the time.
The myth that it is trying to counter is that you having a metal ring/watch/etc on you will make you a target over a tree or something similar.
Lighting is not a magical thing, it’s just electricity, but it’s so much electricity that it can arc extreme distances and be conducted through things we consider non conductive. And here’s the thing, air is a much better insulator than almost anything else, so height will be the determining factor most of the time because it will always be easier for the electricity to run through 10m of wood than 9m of metal and 1m of air, but between 10m of metal and 10m of wood it’s a no contest.
This is why you can be electrocuted inside a wooden gazebo, the tall building will offer less resistance to the lighting, and of you’re touching ground and a pillar you offer less resistance than the wood pillar. A metal gazebo is more conductive than you so it will create a Faraday cage, because the electricity will mostly prefer the metal. That is not to say you’re 100% sure to be safe there, but that’s where I would place my bet.
Those two sentences are entirely unrelated. Just because lightning will strike wood under some circumstances has nothing to do with whether it’s more likely to strike metal.
A more definitive statement would be, “Lightning has been repeatedly observed striking metal objects, and those made of other materials, with equal frequency, provided the objects are of equal height and in the same general location.”