Lightning Facts

Oak trees are struck by lightning more than any other tree.

9 out of 10 lightning strike victims survive!

At any given moment, roughly 1,800 thunderstorms are happening somewhere on Earth, adding up to about 16 million storms per year.

Men are 6 times more likely to be struck by lightning than women!

The bright flash of lightning you see actually travels upward from the ground. While invisible downward 'stepped leaders' descend from clouds, the brilliant 'return stroke' that creates the visible lightning bolt travels from ground to sky at one-third the speed of light.

Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet!

A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than those found at the sun's surface!

In 1980, a 62-year-old man with impaired vision and hearing got struck by lightning. When he woke up the next day, he could see and hear fine!

There is a persistent storm in Venezuela that produces lightning 140 to 160 nights a year, 10 hours per day and up to 280 times per hour and has been going since at least the 16th century.

A German photographer actually snapped a picture of a plane being struck by lightning inside a rainbow.

Jupiter produces lightning bolts up to 1,000 times more powerful than anything on Earth, generated by towering clouds of ammonia and water that don't exist anywhere else in the solar system. NASA's Juno spacecraft discovered that ammonia vapour melts high-altitude ice crystals on Jupiter, creating an exotic 'antifreeze' cloud system that generates these extreme electrical discharges.