Electric spark between person and another person/thing

[ZdMh]

TL;DR

Why an electric spark is happening a lot and much stronger in a new country I recently moved to

Hello All!

You know sometimes you touch another person and you felt an electric spark between both of you, or sometimes with things like the door handle, etc. I moved lately to a hot and dry country where the temperature is around 40-45 Celcius degrees now in August, but since I moved here this electric spark happened a lot and much stronger. Yes, I know maybe I must plug myself into a battery to charge it for free Huh, but really why this is happening and is the reason related to the higher temperature?

 

[Borek]

Dry air slows down the charge loss, so it is easier to build up large voltages. But, often the culprit is just the surface on which you are walking - some carpets/floor types have tendency to quickly built static charges when you walk on them, it doesn't have anything with geography. Back in early nineties I worked at a company where we were forced into replacing the carpet after we lost some hardware to static charges (and I don't speak about anything really fancy, we killed interfaces between things like printers, computers etc).

 

[Baluncore]

I moved lately to a hot and dry country where the temperature is around 40-45 Celcius degrees now in August, but since I moved here this electric spark happened a lot and much stronger.

Are the floors covered with the same material as before ?
Do you wear the same shoes as before ?
I would expect seasonal variation in humidity to be more important than temperature.
What are the two countries ?

 

[ZdMh]

@Borek @Baluncore
I think you both are right. My current country is so dry [15% Humidity], while my old one was humid. Therefore the electric discharge is easlily happening!
But thank you for mentioning the idea of "some carpets/floor types", I didn't know of that before... what types do you mean[have a tendency to quickly built static charges]

 

[Tom.G]

Carpets of Wool or of synthetic fibers of various types are the worst.

See this post and thread for further information:
https://www.physicsforums.com/posts/6127376/

Cheers,
Tom