The July WxTalk webinar featured Ron Holle, a meteorological consultant with extensive experience in meteorological education issues, particularly those relating to lightning safety and the demographics of lightning victims and damages. His presentation,"International Lightning" described global and U.S. lightning occurrence and fatalities.
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| World-wide lightning density for 2021 |
During his presentation Holle described what countries have the most lightning strikes. Brazil is at the top of the list, the United States second, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Australia rounding out the top four. India tops the list for fatalities with an average of 1755 fatalities per year. Fatalities in the U.S. have decreased in the past 100 years from around 450 in 1920 to less than 50 in 2020, and Holle describes the reasons for this relatively low fatality rate. Florida leads all states with 49 fatalities in the past 10 years, followed by Texas with 22.
Past webinars can be viewed in the WxTalk Webinar Series archive which includes descriptions and links to all of the webinars presented since 2011.
