Lightning strike wounds professional#

A region in the Everglades, near Orangetree, Fla., takes the top U.S. Of the top 500 hot spots in the world, Central Africa is home to 283 of them, including the second-ranked hot spot: Kahuzi-Biéga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The lake’s unique geography - surrounded by steep mountain walls and located adjacent to the warm Gulf of Venezuela - sets up convergent land-lake winds that trigger deep convection and lead to lightning storms 297 days per year on average.Īfrica’s Lake Victoria, the largest tropical lake in the world, also experiences nighttime convection and high lightning flash rates. But there is a wide range of variation.Īt Lake Maracaibo, for example, lightning occurs mostly over the lake at night and most frequently during spring and autumn.

Their results, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorology Society, show that these concentrations of lightning, generally driven by convective updrafts, occur more frequently over land than over oceans and usually during summer afternoons. Researchers led by Rachel Albrecht, a meteorologist at the University of São Paolo in Brazil and the University of Maryland, used data obtained between 19 from a lightning imaging sensor aboard the TRMM satellite to derive lightning flash-rate density maps and rank the planet’s top 500 lightning hot spots. Data from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) has now confirmed that Lake Maracaibo is Earth’s top lightning hot spot. About 10 of people who are struck by lightning die because the heart stops beating and breathing stops. Police say around 3:30 p.m., EMS responded to a call for help after a 31-year-old woman was hit by lightning while walking her dog on the beach.

Lightning strike wounds professional#

People who live around Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo call it a “lighthouse.” The lake’s “never-Įnding storm” has been written about for centuries, and the incessant lightning there has even helped guide Caribbean sailors. Reviewed/Revised Mar 2022 Modified Sep 2022 VIEW PROFESSIONAL VERSION Symptoms Diagnosis Prevention Prognosis Treatment More Information A lightning injury occurs after brief exposure to the very intense current of the strike. Thunderstorms occur roughly 297 days per year above Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela.