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Looking at an arc welder is bad, it is a source that emits on a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum. More specifically the blue and UV are particularly bad for vision:

Artificial sources of UV radiation also cause corneal damage. Injury from a welder's arc commonly is known as flash burn, welder's flash, or arc eye. Other sources of UV radiation injury include sun tanning beds, carbon arcs, photographic flood lamps, lightning, electric sparks, and halogen desk lamps. Several outbreaks of ultraviolet keratitis have been observed in the United States after installation of improper lighting in school gymnasiums, resulting in high levels of UV radiation.

Source: https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/799025-overview

Does lightning release the same magnitude of electromagnetic emissions as an arc wielder, in UVA, UVB or UVC spectra? Could watching lightning repeatedly degrade human vision?

Voltage Spike
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  • Voting to close, this is health related. Not related to earth sciences. – Gimelist Aug 24 '18 at 03:57
  • Fine I'll change it – Voltage Spike Aug 24 '18 at 04:43
  • I didn't see the original question as being too non Earth Science to stay. It's hard to find a home for such cross-disciplinary questions. I'm not sure whether anyone around here will be able to answer the full question about the eye dangers, but it's an interesting question :) – JeopardyTempest Aug 24 '18 at 07:13
  • More like a plasma cutter. – Ash Aug 27 '18 at 16:10
  • Related: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/271211/why-is-the-color-of-lightning-white-or-blue-rather-than-nothing – Spencer Aug 28 '18 at 00:43
  • Voting to leave open, as it's fundemenatally asking about the spectrum of the light from lightning - which is very much on topic. The final sentence could possibly be removed from the question to remove doubt... – Semidiurnal Simon Sep 03 '18 at 10:24

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