Lightning is a Killer!

When the clouds get angry beware! It is said that more people are injured and killed every year by lightning than by any other form of bad weather including Hurricanes. Below are some interesting facts and links to Lightning related web pages.
ENJOY

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
Lightning strikes the earth about 100 times per second, and kills more than 100 Americans each year. Annual property losses, fire and other damage to structures, aircraft damage, livestock deaths and injuries, forest fires and other effects are estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Lightning is a huge electrical spark resulting from the generation and separation of electrical charges in a thunderstorm. The accumulation of an electrical charge in the lower portion of the cloud can induce the opposite charge on the earth's surface. Electrical charges accumulate until the air, a poor conductor of electricity, can no longer prevent a flow of current. When the discharge occurs, it is along a lightning channel that typical ly connects elevated ground objects (such as buildings and trees) and the cloud base. Thunder is the sound produced by the explosive expansion of air heated by a lightning stroke. When lightning is near, the thunder sounds like a sharp crack. More dista nt strokes produce growling and rumbling noises, a result of the sound being refracted and modified by the turbulent environment of the thunderstorm. Because the speed of light is about a million times that of sound, the lightning bolt is visible before the thunder is heard. This makes it possible to estimate the distance (in miles) of the lightning stroke by counting the number of seconds between lightning and thunder and dividing by five.

Ever See Lightning on a CD-ROM