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“ looks for the best conducting path to ground,” Erdman said. For example, even though lightning doesn’t always strike the highest given point in any area, it’s probably a good idea to not be on a golf course holding up a club or on open water in a boat. In the United States, there are two hot zones, said Jonathan. Though some theories about lightning are no more than myths - protective rubber-soled sneakers, we’re looking at you - others ring true. It’s no surprise that the top five, which each saw more than 50 lightning strikes between 19, were in the south. “More people may be outside at the pool or at the beach.” There are two sets of images for (1) NLDN cloud-to-ground flashes only and (2) GOES-East Lightning Mapper (GLM) cloud flash points. “To me those are the types that are most dangerous,” he said. The lightning images below are updated daily around 7:308:30 AM and contain 24-h accumulations of lightning ending at 6 am MDT (5 am MST) each day.
and Canada, so southern storms move slowly, only 5 or 10 miles per hour, sitting over one area and producing what Erdman calls a series of prolific lightning strikes. In the spring months in the south, thunderstorms move quickly - anywhere from 30 to 50 miles per hour or faster. While lightning rates may be impressive, thunderstorms may not last long. In the summertime, however, the jet stream is in the northeast of the U.S. “The more people want to get out in the afternoon, that’s where we start to see the lightning fatalities and injuries in places like Colorado.”Īnother factor in why some places are more prone to lightning strikes has to do with the speed of the storms, which is determined by winds well above the surface. Obviously, there are more thunderstorms in the summer,” he said. “Outdoor recreation is the most active in the summertime. The other, he said, is from Oklahoma through eastern Kansas and north into southern Iowa. The first is all of Florida up to the northern Gulf Coast. “In the United States, there are two hot zones,” said Jonathan Erdman, a senior meteorologist for The Weather Channel. It’s no surprise that the top five, which each saw more than 50 lightning strikes between 19, were in the south. (ABOVE: The Top 50 Counties for Lightning Strikes) In fact, Mary Ann Cooper, M.D., who runs the Lightning Injury Research Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, writes that the number of people harmed from lightning is four to five times that of the number of fatalities.Ī new map of the United States from Google created with numbers from the University of South Carolina’s “Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database” reveals where most of these lightning strikes take place. It kills at least 50 people every year in the United States - some sources put the number closer to 300 - and many more are permanently injured from the weather.