Weather Facts

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!

Rain contains vitamin B12.

A typical raindrop falls at approximately 17 miles per hour, though speeds vary significantly with size.

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!

It snows more in the Grand Canyon than it does in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The winter of 1912 was so cold that Niagara Falls partially froze, creating a massive ice bridge that tourists could walk across.

José Prudencio Padilla had 22 ships against Spain's 32 at Lake Maracaibo - and one secret weapon. The Catatumbo lightning strikes the same Venezuelan sky up to 28 times a minute, lighting up the Spanish fleet in the dark. Padilla's ambush secured Venezuela's independence in a single afternoon in 1823. This same storm still fires 260 nights a year - the most concentrated lightning on Earth.

In 2012, a national survey found that 51% of people thought stormy weather affected cloud computing.

At 90 degrees below zero, your breath will freeze in mid-air and fall to the ground.

Florida has more tornados per square mile than any other state.

The top sales at Walmart as a storm approaches are Pop-Tarts and beer.

During the 2022 Buffalo blizzard, Jay Withey knocked on 10 doors begging for shelter. All 10 said no. He smashed a window at Pine Hill School and guided 24 stranded strangers inside. He found cereal in the cafeteria and gym mats for beds. Before leaving, he left a note: "I'm terribly sorry about the window. I had to save everyone. Merry Christmas, Jay." Police put out a call to find him. Not to arrest him. To thank him.

Salvatore Pagliuca was stuck in a wooden hut atop Mount Washington on April 12, 1934. Two other observers were there. Ice was jamming their wind gauge in a growing storm. One of them went outside into 150 mph winds. He knocked the gauge clear with a wooden club. Hours later, Pagliuca clocked a gust at 231 mph. It's still the fastest wind ever measured by a person at a staffed weather station.

At the edge of Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, a storm has returned night after night for centuries. It produces almost 250 lightning flashes per km2 per year - more than anywhere on Earth. Sailors gave it a name: the Beacon of Maracaibo. It fires 140 to 160 nights a year, for up to 9 hours a night. Zulia state put a white lightning bolt on its flag.

Death Valley is the hottest, driest place in North America. In February 2024, record rain turned its lowest point into a temporary lake called Lake Manly. It stretched six miles long and three miles wide, but only a foot deep. Death Valley has no outlet to the sea, so a lake this size almost never forms. People still grabbed kayaks and paddled across it.

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.

Two anonymous traders bet on the weather in Paris through prediction market Polymarket, then allegedly walked to an unguarded Meteo-France sensor at Charles de Gaulle Airport and heated it with a hair dryer. The sensor spiked several degrees in seconds - far outside anything a forecast predicted. Together they walked away with over $35,000. Polymarket paid out in full and kept the bets valid.