North American Monsoon Lightning

Lightning: The Most Underrated Weather Hazard

Lightning makes every single thunderstorm a potential killer, whether the storm produces one single bolt or ten thousand bolts. Over the past decade in the United States, lightning fatalities killed around 20 people per year. For a detailed summary of lightning statistics for the last decade in the United States and additional safety information, visit the National Weather Service Lightning Safety Tips and Resources page.

Tornadoes, hail, and wind gusts get the most attention, but only lightning can strike well outside the storm itself.

Lightning is often the first thunderstorm hazard to arrive and the last to leave. Lightning is one of the most capricious characteristics of a thunderstorm. However, knowing and following proven lightning safety guidelines can greatly reduce the risk of injury or death.

Above: Multiple cloud-to-ground lightning strikes are seen near House, New Mexico. Photo by John Sirlin.

Your Safe Place From Lightning

Lightning strikes the U.S. 25 million times a year, which sometimes results in death or permanent injury. You are safest indoors or inside a hard-topped enclosed vehicle. Remember, YOU are ultimately responsible for your personal safety, and should take appropriate action when threatened by lightning.

20-25 Million Lightning Flashes in the U.S. Annually

Your chance of being struck by lightning greatly increases when remaining outdoors during a thunderstorm. Lightning can strike from up to 10 miles away from the rain shaft of a thunderstorm. Some of the activities people were doing when they were recently struck by lightning include golfing, boating, running, grilling, walking, construction, riding, gardening, and swimming. When thunder roars, go indoors! See a flash, dash inside!

Lightning Safety Tips:

• Check the forecast before any outdoor activities.
• Watch for signs of an approaching thunderstorm.
• Postpone outdoor activities if thunderstorms are imminent. This is your best way to avoid being caught in a dangerous situation.
• REMEMBER if you can hear thunder, you are close enough to a storm to be struck by lightning. In other words, when thunder roars, go indoors!
• Get inside a house, large shelter or an all-metal vehicle (not a convertible).
• If safe shelter is not available, find a low spot away from trees, fences, and poles.
• If boating or swimming, get out of boats and away from the water, get to land and find shelter immediately.
• Only use land line telephones in an emergency (cell phones are safe to use).
• Remain clear of tall, isolated trees and telephone poles.
• Stay away from wire fences, clotheslines or metal pipes and rails.

Additional Information

Lightning is one of the oldest observed natural phenomena on earth. At the same time, our understanding of lightning is still very elementary. While lightning is simply a gigantic spark of static electricity (the same kind of electricity that sometimes shocks you when you touch a doorknob), scientists still have lots of research left to complete in order to gain a complete grasp on how it works, and how it interacts with solar flares impacting the upper atmosphere or the earth's electromagnetic field.

Lightning has been seen in volcanic eruptions, extremely intense forest fires, surface nuclear detonations, heavy snowstorms, and in large hurricanes. However, lightning is most often seen in thunderstorms.

Did you know?

• The air near a lightning strike is heated to 50,000 degrees F! That is hotter than the surface of the sun!

• The average flash could light an incandescent 100-watt light bulb for more than 3 months.

• At any given moment, there can be as many as 2,000 thunderstorms occurring across the globe. This translates to more than 14.5 MILLION storms each year. NASA satellite research indicated these storms produce lightning flashes about 40 times a second worldwide.

• Lightning occurs with all thunderstorms.

• For much more information on lightning and lightning safety, click here to go to JetStream, the online school for weather.

• You can also learn more about lightning at: https://www.weather.gov/safety/thunderstorm