| I've just been looking on the net this morning for lightning facts and
I've put together a short list of info that you may find useful for your
weather facts pages. All my own words, so don't worry about copyright etc.
Most lightning strikes are 2 to 3 miles long, but they can reach up 10
miles in length
A strike will usually carry a current of about 10000 Amps at 100 million
to 1 billion volts.
Even with good, quiet, outdoor conditions, thunder can only be heard
about 12 miles away
At night, lightning can be seen over 100 miles away
At approximately 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the average lightning bolt
is hotter than the sun
In any one second of the day, there are about 50 to 100 cloud-to-ground
lightning strikes on earth
Most lightning strikes happen at the beginning or the end of a storm
Lightning is the primary cause of storm-related deaths
When I lived in Italy in a place called Bassano del Grappa, which is on the edge of the alps, I never, in 3 months, had rain. Most evenings however you could see the most horrendous lightening over the alps. It used to light the night up as if someone had just tuned a light on. One night I took an american colleague for a drive up into the alps and the weather was probably the most extreme I have ever witnessed. It had been in the forties (centigrade) in the day but up in the alps the weather was atrocious - the rain bouncing back up a metre and driving was very difficult. My co-pilot, Dave fell ill with car sickness so it took us ages to get back. After a few hours we got back to Bassano - Bone dry. Literally 3 miles and such a difference.  |