Florida has been unseated as the lightning capital of the U.S. and Texas became the nation’s hotspot for storm intensity last year, according to a preview of a new report.
AEM, a portfolio company focused on technology solutions developed the new report with its Earth Networks Total Lightning Network (ENTLN). It covered 429.9 million lighting pulses and 88.4 million lightning flashes across the U.S. last year, a 9.8% increase in activity compared to the previous year.
“Oklahoma dethrones Florida as lightning report hot spot,” said the report.
That means it had the highest concentration of lightning (73 flashes per mile) in the country. According to AEM’s report, it also “signals a broader surge on lighting activity across the Great Plains.”
Lightning appears as bolts of bright light in the sky. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it is electricity sparking between clouds, the air or the ground.
“In the early stages of development, air acts as an insulator between the positive and negative charges in the cloud and between the cloud and the ground,” NOAA explained. “When the opposite charges build up enough, this insulating capacity of the air breaks down and there is a rapid discharge of electricity that we know as lightning. The flash of lightning temporarily equalizes the charged regions in the atmosphere until the opposite charges build up again.”
While Oklahoma’s Kay County was also found to be the most lightning dense county in the U.S. at 123.4 flashes per square miles, Texas featured prominently in the report as well. With 9,103 Dangerous Thunderstorm Alerts (DTAs), the state was ranked first in storm intensity last year and it had the biggest surge of lightning at 1.3 million flashes above average.
“Texas had more than twice as many dangerous thunderstorms as the next highest state,” said the AEM report. “In fact, the Plains states accounted for half of the top 10 states with the most DTAs.”
Audacy has also reported on a lightning flash that extended from Texas to Missouri back in October 2017. Last August, it was identified as the longest flash in recorded history.
Other findings from the AEM report indicate that June 15 was the most lightning intense day with 929,016 flashes and that peak lightning days coincided with billion-dollar disasters. The full report is expected to be released next week.
“For states ranging from as far south as Arkansas and Texas and as far north as Wisconsin, lightning peaked when they encountered their most costly storms and tornado outbreaks,” said the report preview.
Great Plains states might be the most lightning-packed in the country, but other states can get hit by severe lightning too. Just last summer, Audacy station KYW Newsradio reported on a lightning strike at a New Jersey archery range that claimed one life and injured 14 others.