lightning

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Lightning Strike Kills Woman on Horseback and Her Horse

A teen rider was also seriously injured

(Newser) - A 37-year-old woman was killed by a lightning strike as she rode her horse on a trail in Sedalia, Colo. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office says the woman was riding along Rainbow Creek Road with a 15-year-old girl when lightning hit them at 3:24pm Sunday. They were on...

World's Longest Lightning Bolt Traveled Nearly 200 Miles

Another record-setting bolt lasted more than 7 seconds

(Newser) - Even among lightning, these two bolts shone bright. For the first time ever, the World Meteorological Organization has added official records for lightning to its list of notable temperatures, winds, and rains, USA Today reports. That means we now know the longest traveling lightning bolt was over Oklahoma in June...

A Gruesome Scene in Norway: 323 Dead Reindeer

Local officials believe animals were killed in freak lightning strike(s)

(Newser) - In a story Sputnik News is labeling "Thor vs. Santa," a Norwegian environmental official making his rounds south of Hardangervidda on Friday stumbled upon a gruesome sight: more than 300 dead reindeer, apparently victims of a lightning strike, the Local reports.The reindeer— known as caribou in North...

Teen Dies When Lightning Strikes Personal Watercraft

Stepmom injured, dad treated for shock

(Newser) - A 14-year-old girl was killed and her 49-year-old stepmother injured Friday when lightning struck the personal watercraft they were riding in a Utah reservoir. Daggett County sheriff's officials say Jayleen Reynolds and stepdaughter Brooklyn Reynolds were riding in a remote area of Flaming Gorge Reservoir around noon when the...

Over 24 Hours of Storms, Lightning Kills 74

Death toll in northern India is expected to rise

(Newser) - Lightning has killed 74 people, mostly farm laborers working in fields, across eastern and northern India over the past 24 hours, officials said Wednesday. A majority of the deaths occurred in the eastern state of Bihar, where 57 people died after being struck by lightning—with the death toll expected...

Rock Festival Suspended After 72 Injured in Lightning Storm

Some were hit by lightning, others by flying debris at Germany's Rock am Ring

(Newser) - A rock festival in western Germany was suspended Saturday after scores of people were injured in a lightning storm, the AP reports. Paramedics said more than 70 people were hospitalized after a storm struck the Rock am Ring festival late Friday at a former airfield 62 miles west of Frankfurt....

Lightning Strikes Children's Birthday Party, 11 Injured

35 more were injured when lightning hit a youth soccer game

(Newser) - Eleven people, many of them children, were struck by lightning Saturday afternoon in a park in Paris, the BBC reports. According to the AP , eight of the victims were children around the age of 9. The children were attending a birthday party at Parc Monceau—a spot popular with "...

Lightning Kills 64 in Bangladesh

Surge in deaths is causing panic

(Newser) - More than 60 people have been killed by lightning over the past two days during tropical storms across Bangladesh, local media said Saturday. Most of the 64 lightning deaths since Thursday have occurred in the countryside, where farmers are busy with the current harvesting season, Bengali-language newspapers Prothom Alo and...

The World Has a New Lightning Capital

Sorry, Congo Basin

(Newser) - Like watching lightning? Book your next vacation for Venezuela. NASA has determined that country's Lake Maracaibo is the new lightning capital of the world. Using 16 years of data from the satellite-based Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS), scientists determined Lake Maracaibo averages about 233 lightning flashes per square kilometer every...

Woman Killed When Lightning Hits Festival Tent

2 others injured, a dog also died in accident

(Newser) - When the weather got bad at Louisiana's T-Bois Blues Festival on Friday night, Jacqui Stavis, two other women, and a Labrador retriever sought shelter in a small tent. But tragedy struck when lightning hit the tent, killing the 28-year-old and the dog and injuring the other two women, the...

Lightning Strikes on Google Wipe Data From Cloud

But only a tiny amount

(Newser) - Mark it down: 2015 is the year Mother Nature officially declared war on the cloud. Lightning struck a Google data center in Belgium four times in rapid succession last week, permanently erasing a small amount of users' data from the cloud, the BBC reports. The lightning caused power failures and...

Why a Venezuela Lake Is Home to Most Lightning on Earth

New satellite images show that lightning flashes most often near the equator

(Newser) - At a lake in Venezuela, a nine-hour display of thousands of flashes of lightning—averaging 28 strokes a minute—is the norm, with the concentration hitting its peak in the October rainy season, reports the BBC . And though the mountain village of Kifuka in DR Congo has long been hailed...

Lightning-Struck Teens Saved by Holding Hands

Without that light PDA, they could have suffered serious injury

(Newser) - There was electricity in the air—literally—on a high-school couple's date Thursday in Claremont, California. It's just a good thing they were holding hands. CNN reports Lexie Varga and Dylan Corliss were struck by lightning while walking to get burgers and were likely saved from serious injury...

Newlyweds' Hike Ends in Tragedy

Kathleen Bartlett killed by lightning strike 6 days after wedding

(Newser) - On July 11, Kathleen Bartlett and Ryan Pocius were married. Six days later, Pocius became a widower. Tragedy struck during a Friday afternoon hike on Mount Yale in Colorado. The Denver Post reports the couple were at 12,400 feet, just above the tree line and about 2,000 feet...

Texas Teen Survives Bizarre Lightning Strike

She got hit in her own kitchen while opening the fridge

(Newser) - Lightning strikes people often enough, but usually not when they're opening the fridge for a snack. Such is the plight of Texas high school student Macie Martinez, who was home with her parents on Memorial Day when a storm blew in. She was opening the fridge to grab some...

Man Survives Lightning Bolt to the Head

Ryan Cross struck while hiding from storm under tree

(Newser) - The odds of getting hit by lightning in the US each year: one in 700,000. The odds of Ryan Cross recovering after he was struck in the head over Memorial Day weekend: pretty good, considering. The Idahoan was riding his 4-wheeler with friends in a mountainous region of Idaho...

Here's Where Lightning Strikes Most Often

You might want to avoid Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo

(Newser) - Bad news for us landlubbers: Lightning strikes more often here than it does on water, NASA reports. And things are particularly bad near the equator. In fact, some 90% of lightning on Earth strikes between the 38th parallels south and north, LiveScience reports. Want more specifics? A new NASA map...

Expect More Lightning in Coming Years
Expect More Lightning in Coming Years
STUDY SAYS
Nov 14, 2014 4:55 PM CST

Expect More Lightning in Coming Years

Study: Climate change could spur up to 50% more strikes over next century

(Newser) - The US and China are working together to temper greenhouse-gas emissions, which could come in handy now that scientists are saying climate change might cause something else down the road: more lightning strikes. A study in Science says lightning frequency in the continental US could spike by more than 12%...

After Tragic Lightning Strike, Indians Leave Dead, Flee

11 Wiwa Indians in Colombia killed when ceremonial hut hit

(Newser) - After a lightning strike last week killed 11 Wiwa Indians and injured another 20 in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Colombia, members of the small tribe of 60 or so families are physically moving on—and in accordance with tradition, they're not burying the dead before they do. "...

Freak Lightning Strike at LA Beach Kills 1, Injures 12

Storm came from nowhere, witnesses say

(Newser) - A rare band of summer thunderstorms left one person dead and a dozen injured from lightning strikes at Venice Beach in Los Angeles yesterday. Witnesses tell the Los Angeles Times that the storm seemed to come from nowhere and lasted 15 minutes, causing panic as fishermen and beachgoers rushed to...

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