We have a lightning drought in Tallahassee | Opinion
According to the National Weather Service’s Drought Monitor, the Florida Panhandle is experiencing a “severe rainfall drought” as of December 8. Although our rainfall to date is approximately one inch above the annual average, that rainfall has not been distributed well during the year. The first eight months had a great deal of rain, but very little since then.
We also are experiencing a “lightning drought”. We did have a small number of cloud to ground (CG) strikes on November 30 (30 strikes in Leon County, with only six within the Tallahassee City Limits). However, prior to that we have to go all the way back to September 13 when the county experienced CG strikes. That is, 77 consecutive days with no lightning. Although fall is one of our drier months with comparatively little lightning, 77 days is a long time.
One the other hand, August had an extraordinary number of cloud to ground strikes. Twenty-six of the 31 days had thunderstorms. Just think, only five days had no thunderstorms. Past records reveal that 26 days is very near our all-time record. July is our runner up this year with 23 days.
Using Earth Networks Lightning Data of which FSU maintains a detector, the red circles on the map show the locations of the August strikes. The 2,599 strikes occurred over all areas of the county. Stated differently, each square mile of the county had an average of 3.7 strikes. Five hundred and 55 of the total strikes were of the more dangerous positive variety that tend to be stronger and more likely to cause fires.
There were approximately 10 times more additional in-cloud flashes that do not cause damage but do produce thunder just like the CG flashes. So August was a very noisy month with lots of loud cracks and rumbling. Within the Tallahassee City Limits there were 475 strikes of which 88 were of the dangerous positive variety.
There will be more lightning in our area, but whatever the amount of lightning, each strike can be costly and deadly. The total costs from lightning-related damage to US industry and property is estimated to bebetween $8 billion and $10 billion per year. And so far this year 19 people in the US have died after being struck; four of them were in Florida. So, take lightning seriously and remember the slogan “When lightning roars, go indoors”.
Henry Fuelberg is a meteorology professor at Florida State University.
Jagdish Desai is a sophomore meteorology major conducting a research project on lightning in our area.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: We have a lightning drought in Tallahassee | Opinion
