On average, every person in their 80s has a good chance of being struck by lightning, about 1 in 12,000.
A lightning strike can sometimes cause a tree to explode. Due to the rapid heating, the juices and moisture inside the tree evaporate so quickly that the tree literally breaks into pieces.
Lightning of Catatumbo – a unique natural phenomenon that occurs above the confluence of the Catatumbo River with Lake Maracaibo (Venezuela). The phenomenon is expressed in the occurrence of many lightning flashes continuously for a long time, mainly at night and with a strong variation depending on the season (maximums occur in May and October). The probability of a lightning strike in this area is the highest in the world: 250 lightning bolts per square kilometer per year. From 70 to 200 thunderstorm days per year are observed here. Lightning can be seen from a distance of up to 400 km. Sailors for many centuries used them for navigation, which is why the second name of this phenomenon is “Maracaibo Lighthouse”. The famous lightning bolts adorn the coat of arms of the state of Sulia and are a real landmark of the region.
Lightning is caused by close 10,000 forest fires annually.
The place where the lightning struck the ground pointed to the treasures of the Scythian barrow robbers, since lightning often strikes barrows containing a lot of metal.
Among all trees, oak is most often struck by lightning, beech is less common. There is an opinion that this is due to the presence of fatty oils in the trees.
Lightning bolts bring benefits. In their flight, they manage to grab millions of tons of nitrogen from the air, “bind” it and send it to the ground. This free fertilizer enriches the soil.
The thunder that we hear during a thunderstorm is a sound wave caused by a lightning discharge at a considerable distance from us.
Annual lightning kill about 24,000 peopleand 10 times more people get various injuries because of them.
Interesting Holidays:
In the United States, more people are killed by lightning each year than in any other country in the world.
Lightning is an attribute of many blacksmith gods, such as Hephaestus, Vulcan and Thor.
The Aztecs believed that lightning discharges accompany the souls of the dead going to the underworld.
The ancient Greeks believed that if a discharge struck a reservoir, a pearl would be born at its bottom.
Many people believe that unusual musical instruments with mystical properties emerge from trees struck by lightning.
The place where lightning struck was considered the best place for digging a well.
On average, about 50-100 discharges strike the Earth’s surface every second.
Despite the fact that thunderstorms and lightning occur more often over water than over land, discharges strike water about 5 times less often than land or various objects.
