Satellites keep watch on thunderstorms across the globe. Roughly how many lightning flashes happen on Earth in one day?
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Answer
About 4 million flashes
The lightning capital of the planet is Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. NASA satellite data show about 233 flashes per square kilometre there each year, with storms on close to 300 nights a year.
How to estimate it
Meteorology textbooks say about 2,000 thunderstorms are active around the globe at any moment. A typical storm produces a flash every 40 seconds or so, giving 2,000 / 40 = 50 flashes per second worldwide. A day has 86,400 seconds, so 50 × 86,400 is about 4.3 million. Satellite counts give roughly 4,000,000 flashes per day.
Source: NASA (Lightning Imaging Sensor and Optical Transient Detector)
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