I switch it all off and unplug, leaving it off for days if forecast is bad. It’s hard though when only a distant rumble is heard!
A pertinent suggestion for some at this time of year.
The safety instructions say unplug during lightening storms. However you are looking at a strategy relating to forecasts. This may have a bearing on your overall experience of the accuracy of the forecasts and where you live.
I am in London and although electrical storms occur I find the forecasts a little pessimistic. This is not a storm belt 
. Yesterday and today the local BBC forecast has had several hour long windows with lightning expected. None has actually happened. The next forecast for an electrical storm is between 08:00 and 10:00 on Tuesday. As English weather is o rapidly changeable I would only start to be be concerned nearer the time. In fact I will then watch the skies and judge as I go. Elsewhere experience may make one more cautious.
In any case I do not leave my equipment on 24/7 being partly tube and due to ecological concerns for wasting energy. I am also here nearly all of the time so don’t have to worry about not being available to deal with the situation if it occurs. However others may well have to make that tough decision in different circumstances.
I’ll unplug if I’m around during a thunderstorm or I’m going away for a few days. If I’m in central London and caught by surprise by a thunderstorm at home, then I’ll get nervous for the rest of the day!
We have surge arrestors on the consumer unit, however I don’t trust that is likely to be sufficient.
We don’t have lightning here in the San Francisco Bay Area (we do, but it’s rare), but we do have power outages due to storms or wildfire risk. I don’t unplug my components, but I do power them down (vs put them in standby). Same if leaving town.
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My setup is on a dedicated circuit and I switch it off only when I am out of down else it is on all the time with 100% trust in God.
For me fully warmed-up system sounds better than a cold started one and knowing that I only get a few minutes daily to listen to my system, cannot afford to wait for my system to warm-up.
Another angle is that, I have so many boxes in my chain that switching them on and off sequentially is a pain and so, I trust in God and good deeds of mine in past births :).
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Similar here in the middle of the country, I find the real time lightening app of use especially in conjunction with rainfall radar - as you can more or less assess where the storm is going when used in animation mode. The UK Met do seem to issue blanket warnings - yesterday it extended over all but Scotland. I do wonder if insurance would use such information to reject a claim in event of a disaster. I do wonder how owners of expensive equipment get on in more storm laden countries? Our Met office app opens invariably in Viwa’ where lightening is omnipresent it seems.
Like you it’s a nervous situation here, and the stormy season seems to get longer each year. We haven’t got surge protectors, which I guess are useful in blocking lower level spikes that are common.
Yes the warm up time is considerable, and it’s a great faff to go through the process in a multi box system.
If you have whole home surge protection that should take care of most of the electric problems. At the max on a power surge we loose a fuse, which shouldn’t be expensive as long as it is the basic glass fuse that dCS provides. Ofcourse, if you use hifi expensives fuses need to protect them 
.
More than electric surge, problems is with network and coaxial connections to the home. Best thing is to isolate all low voltage connection as much possible with the hifi AV gear.
I (suspect) once had one of my Ethernet devices damaged post which I installed this at the entry of the Ethernet to my house from ISP.
Totally agree on the fully warmed up system. Just saying, I wouldn’t feel comfortable flipping off the breaker on the dedicated circuit for lightning protection. The bolt just jumped from 10-30k feet in the air to your mains panel, I’m guessing it can bridge an open breaker easily…again, just saying.
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I tend to unplug units completely [edit: during a storm] for this reason
I have all of my valuable gear plugged into a single wall outlet (via a 10-socket passive power conditioner), so all I do when the weather is getting exciting is unplug that from the wall and the Ethernet cable from the back of the Rossini so that I don’t get bitten by a surge from the dirtier equipment that isn’t plugged into the conditioner (modem, switch etc.)
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Hi Guys,
Having seen the results of a couple of nearby lightning strikes I can 100% assure you that surge protectors and mains conditioners will make absolutely 0% of difference to the absolute carnage that an unfortunately located lightning strike can cause.
Having stuff turned off at the wall outlet will also make no practical difference either.
Ultimately though what happens really depends on how big a hit and exactly where but to be 90+% safe you need to be unplugged from the wall (and has also been mentioned - it’s well worth pulling the Ethernet feed too).
I’ve seen systems come in for insurance evaluation / repair where I was previously the state of which you just wouldn’t believe … PCBs just split apart from the inside, PCB tracks simply missing having been fried etc. 
OK so they’re more the exception than the rule and in those cases the owners had lots of damage to other things to deal with too.
P
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Many years ago, a colleague had his house hit by lightening which blew the radiators off the wall so I can believe anything plugged in during a lightening strike would not look pretty.
Our mains cables are underground, but I’m willing to bet a strike on the HV cables could be pretty devastating too. Unplugging completely sounds the safe thing to do…
I guess it comes down to just how safe / prepared / paranoid you want to be … and how good your household insurance is.
P
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For what it costs, I’d like to think we’re well covered. I still wouldn’t like to tempt fate, though, especially with the waiting lists as they are for some of this kit!
Darn it, Phil — I’ve always thought of you as the good news guy! 
Jeff
… some days I’m good cop some days I’m bad cop.
Phil
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You’re a bad man…
J