Interesting Facts About Lightning

Interesting Facts About Lightning

Photo by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

Lightning is an amazing and breathtaking sight to witness. At the same time it is one of the most dangerous and unpredictable of all natural phenomena. But how much do you really know about lightning? Even though scientists all over the world are gathering facts about lightning, dividing it into different types, measuring its voltage, monitoring temperature, and creating it in laboratories, it is still impossible to predict the behavior of every lightning bolt. Let’s look through some facts about lightning.

• Glass forms when lightning strikes into sandy soil. After a storm you can find strips of glass in the sand.
• If you have wet clothes on, lightning will do you less harm.
• In March of 1991 a single six-hour storm stretching over Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri caused more than 15,000 lightning strikes. During the storm the skies were ablaze with almost constant lightning.
• Lightning hits the Empire State Building (NY, USA) about 23 times a year.
• Lightning strikes also occur on Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.
• The Aztecs believed that lightning accompanied the dead, splitting the earth and making its way into its depths.
• In the Middle Ages it was believed that church bells expelled evil spirits. Thunder and lightning were regarded as diabolical, so during a thunderstorm monks tried to constantly ring the bells. As a result the victims of lightning very often were bell-ringers.
• The irrational fear of lightning is known as keraunophobia. The fear of thunder is termed brontophobia.
• There are from 100 to 1000 instances of ball lightning at the same time on Earth, but the chance you’ll see at least one in your lifetime is just 0.01%.

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