19 August 2021

Curious about lightning? Today’s article is a scavenger hunt for lightning facts. Two vintage blog posts provide the answers.

Looking Forward to a Little Less Lightning (click the link) will tell you …

• Which month produces the most lightning in Pittsburgh?
• If a person is struck by lightning what’s their percentage change of surviving it?
• Who holds the world record for being struck by lightning? How many times was he hit? Did it eventually kill him? And a much longer story about him here.

In Why Does Thunder Rumble? you’ll find out:

• How long is a lightning bolt?
• How far away is that lightning? Plus an easy technique for answering this question.
• (And of course) Why does thunder rumble?

And a bonus! Here’s a 10 minute video of lightning in slow motion recorded in Singapore by The Slow Mo Guys. (I’ve skipped the video forward to just before the lightning starts.)

(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)