Preprints, 6th Conference on Mesoscale Processes , Portland, OR, American Meteorological Society, 75-76. Deaths, injuries, and property damage due to lightning in Colorado from 1950 to 1991 based on Storm Data. Forty-two years of lightning casualty and damage reports in Colorado are summarized. The data are from NOAA's Storm Data , which is compiled monthly by the National Weather Service. Time fluctuations of these lightning events are shown by classifying the data by year, month, and hour of the day.
Additional information is provided on age and gender of lightning victims.
Houses were the most common objects reported as damaged by lightning. Fire was the most common source of lightning damage to structures or objects. Comparisons are made of these and other results, when possible, with previous studies of lightning in other locations around the world. Geographical patterns of lightning incidents for the state are shown in maps of total number of casualties, and number of casualties normalized by population density for each county. Much higher casualty rates per population and area occur over the mountains and some areas of the eastern slopes than elsewhere.