Florida averages 70 to 100 thunderstorm days a year. Orlando has 80 to 90 days.
Your chances of being struck by lightning in the United States are 1 in 600,000. But your chances of being struck in Florida are higher simply due to the state being the lightning capital of the United States. Tropical Africa is the lightning capital of the world as more than 280 thunderstorm days occur at this location.
Number of thunderstorms occurring at any given moment: 2,000
Number of lightning strikes every second: 100
Number of lightning strikes a day: 8 million
Number of thunderstorms occurring in the United States a year: 100,000
Number of lightning strikes in the USA per year: 20 million
How many volts and amps in a typical lightning flash? A typical lightning bolt contains 1 billion volts and contains between 10,000 to 200,000 amperes of current.
The average flash would light a 100 watt lightbulb for 3 months.
Courtesy of the:
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
U. S. Department of Commerce
*Stay indoors, and don't venture outside, unless absolutely necessary.
*Stay away from open doors and windows, fireplaces, radiators, stoves, metal pipes, sinks, and plug-in electrical appliances.
*Don't use plug-in electrical equipment like hair driers, electric toothbrushes, or electric razors during the storm.
*Don't use the telephone during the storm. Lightning may strike telephone lines outside.
*Don't take laundry off the clothesline.
*Don't work on fences, telephone or power lines, pipelines, or structural steel fabrication.
*Don't use metal objects like fishing rods and golf clubs. Golfers wearing cleated shoes are particularly good lightning rods.
*Don't handle flammable materials in open containers.
*Stop tractor work, especially when the tractor is pulling metal equipment, and dismount. Tractors and other implements in metallic contact with the ground are often struck by lightning.
*Get out of the water and off small boats.
*Stay in your automobile if you are traveling. Automobiles offer excellent lightning protection.
*Seek shelter in buildings. If no buildings are available, your best protection is a cave, ditch, canyon, or under head-high clumps of trees in open forest glades.
*When there is no shelter, avoid the highest object in the area. If only isolated trees are nearby, your best protection is to crouch in the open, keeping twice as far away from isolated trees as the trees are high.
*Avoid hilltops, open spaces, wire fences, metal clotheslines, exposed sheds, and any electrically conductive elevated objects.
*When you feel the electrical charge -- if your hair stands on end or your skin tingles -- lightning may be about to strike you. Drop to the ground immediately.
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