Ask HN: Can lightning strikes be guided down sides of skyscrapers to the ground?
This would make lightning strikes look more spectacular than those that just hit a lightning rod on top of a skyscraper.
Buildings usually have a high point array of many sharp spikes and top and edges that can suppress lightning by feeding a shorting current to the charge. Often a strike does not occur, but often it does. Many high building are struck hundreds of times in a storm. Usually the steel frame shorts these to ground, but peaks are so high that a bolt can jump to a close item, like a tree, because the current is so high the voltage drop can make a sub-leader arise. This is a greater risk with trees and a travelling bolt can choose a local salt water conductor = you under a tree - which is why you do not stand up in row boats or shelter under trees. Look for low ground, lie down and hope that guy on a golf cart, under a tree, is the Darwin Award winner...