What Region Has Been Hit by Lightning the Most?

Cause of Lightning

• The Earth maintains a charge difference with the atmosphere -- it is charged negatively while the atmosphere is positive. As water that is constantly migrating upward from the Earth condenses into clouds, the droplets, which turn to ice in the cold upper atmosphere, rub against each other and create a static charge. When the charge is great enough, the cloud sends an invisible leader to the Earth, and once it makes contact, the Earth discharges its energy upward to form a lightning bolt. The entire process takes milliseconds and generates billions of watts of electrical power and temperatures up to 33,000 degrees Celsius (60,000 degrees Fahrenheit).

Lightning Capital of the World

• Satellites observing Earth track the number of lightning flashes and their locations, and they confirm that the greatest number of flashes occurs near the equator, where the air is moist and unsettled. In 2004 and 2005, NASA reported that its Lightning Imaging Sensor recorded more flashes in Kifuka, a small village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, than anywhere else on Earth. The village, located 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of the equator, experiences 158 lightning strikes per square kilometer (409 per square mile) every year. That's 300 times more strikes than occur in the Alps.

Strikes in North America

• Although it receives three times fewer strikes than Kifuka and other parts of equatorial Africa, central Florida is the undisputed lightning capital of North America and one of the most lightning-prone regions of the world. The strikes occur mainly in a stretch of land that extends between Tampa, on the Gulf Coast, and Titusville, on the Atlantic, that has earned the name "Lightning Alley." The second most lightning-prone region in the United States, the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, receives most of its strikes in the summer, when warm temperatures combine with moist air from the Gulf of Mexico.

Positive Lightning

• Not all of the billion or so lightning flashes recorded by satellites every year are cloud-to-ground strikes; many are cloud-to-cloud. The most powerful strikes, however, are those that develop in the upper atmosphere where the air has a positive charge. These strikes, known as positive lightning because they transfer a net positive charge to the ground, can hit the ground many miles away from the clouds in which they form. Positive strikes can be 10 times more energetic than negative ones and are more destructive. Scientists believe they are responsible for a large percentage of forest fires and damaged power lines.