ORLANDO, Fla. – Winter is right around the corner, but the weather has begun to get colder and drier across Central Florida. During the warmer and humid seasons, you’re safe to touch doorknobs, pets and open car doors, and then it gets colder and then you can’t get near anything without a quick zap of static electricity.
Static electricity is plainly a build up of charges. Different materials create more static electricity than others. There are some that give up electrons, giving an object a positive charge and there are some that attract electrons, giving them a negative charge.
A great example, touching a metal doorknob and then suddenly, ZAP! Well, electricity always moves through circuits and wires. When you plug something, it moves through the wire to whatever needs to be powered.
Touching a doorknob, the extra electrons from your body want to find their way to the doorknob, which has a positive charge. The little shock that you experience is triggered by this process called static shock.
Everything around us is made very small particles called atoms. Atoms consists of positive charges (protons), negative charges (electrons) and no charge (neutrons).
Static electricity is formed when there is a lack of balance between the positive and negative charges with electrons jumping from one object or person to another.
But why does the colder weather make it worse? Well, the more electrons are allowed to move around, the less likely that they’ll collect in once place.
Dry air is an insulator, which means that it doesn’t let electrons pass through it easily. Add water vapor on a humid summer day, it changes the dynamic on how electrons move and then it becomes a great conductor.
The amount of water in the air depends on the temperature: Warm air holds more water than cold air. But warming up cold air, the way we do indoors in winter, doesn’t make it any wetter. In fact, because the dewpoint doesn’t rise with the rising temperature, the air becomes even drier.
In turn, makes it difficult for electrons to move around and makes static shock worse.
So, how can you limit getting shocked? A humidifier will become your best friend during the cold, dry winter months. By increasing the moisture in the air by misting water vapor into your space, you can give electrons a place to move around free again and stop collecting on you so you don’t get zapped every time you touch something.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: