Three weeks of lightning in a few hours. Thunderstorms light up Columbus, rest of Georgia

A slew of storm cells swept through Southern Georgia Sunday between 7:30-11 p.m. that lit up the sky with around 50,000 lightning events.

“There were a multitude of storms going through the area,” said Carmen Hernandez, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Atlanta. “The bulk of the storm [near Columbus] was in Alabama.”

The strongest part of the storm produced 40-50 mph winds and small hail. Another line of storms extended from Tifton to the Georgia coast.

Columbus escaped the worst of the storm. Most of what Columbus experienced was giant sparks of lightning, rain, and some wind.

“We fared pretty well,” Chris Corbett, director of Homeland Security for Columbus, said. “There were minor power outages and traffic lights that lost power and a lot of lightning.”

Thunderstorms and lightning in the summer are not unusual in the South. There were significant lightning events in one evening’s storm, though.

“[It was] quite the event,” Scott Mackaro, head of innovation and insight for global lightning strike count company Vaisala, said.

According to Viasala, there were 16,315 total lightning events within 30 miles of Columbus; 20% of those hit the ground yesterday evening.

Vaisala estimates there are around 364,425 lightning events per year in Muscogee County, making yesterday’s storm almost three weeks’ worth of lightning in a couple of hours.

This is just a drop in the bucket for what the U.S. experiences in an entire year. In the United States, there are about 25 million lightning flashes every year.

Lightning strikes only kill about 20 people in the United States per year. According to the National Weather Service, there have been seven deaths by lightning in 2023.