The National Safety Council says that more than 120 Americans are killed by lightning every year. Other sources place the toll closer to 200 dead. Lightning causes the majority of the world's forest fires - 10,000 a year in this country alone. AND it causes building fires, burns out electrical appliances, disrupts telephone service, interferes with radio communications, and destroys many types of electronic devices.
Lightning occurs primarily during thunderstorms.
But there are many other types of lightning as well. Heat lightning, Ribbon lightning, Bead lightning and Ball lightning. Where there is lightning there is thunder. It occurs when a lightning stroke heats the air surrounding the channel so rapidly that it expands explosively, creating a shock wave. As you read this, about 2,000 thunderstorms are in progress, producing 100 lightning flashes every second - eight million every day.