It's scary to think about all the things that "everyone knows" that I've never even heard of. The "milk spoils during thunderstorms" canard is news to me, but it's apparently a common piece of wisdom passed around by old farmers and other people who, frankly, are usually right.
Experiments have confirmed that this is nothing but an old wives' tale. Thunder and lightning don't do anything to milk. There's no electrical or ozone effect; souring is caused by bacteria only. Yet many people still believe that thunderstorms cause milk to curdle or go sour — they've seen it happen with their own eyes.
The probable explanation for this is that while thunderstorms don't cause milk to go sour, they can be symptomatic of other circumstances that speed up the souring process. Thunderstorms are usually preceded by hot, humid weather, which is exactly the kind of environment in which milk-souring bacteria thrive. So the conditions that create thunderstorms are also the conditions that create sour milk.
In the days before refrigeration, this would have been particularly visible, and if you leave milk sitting out during a thunderstorm, it probably will go sour faster than normal. But alas, I think your in-laws might need a new refrigerator. Or, at the very least, new milk.
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