lightening Round!

Facts about Lightening...You never know...

• Lightning is one of the leading weather-related causes of death and injury in the United States
• You can be struck by lightning even when the center of a thunderstorm is 10 miles (16 kilometers) away 
• The spark can reach over five miles (eight kilometers) in length, raise the temperature of the air by as much as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (27,700 degrees Celsius), and contain a hundred million electrical volts
• It is estimated that Earth as a whole is struck by an average of more than a hundred lightning bolts every second
• The odds of becoming a lightning victim in the U.S. in any one year is 1 in 700,000. The odds of being struck in your lifetime is 1 in 3,000.
• Lightning can kill people (3,696 deaths were recorded in the U.S. between 1959 and 2003)
• About 10 percent of lightning-stroke victims are killed, and 70 percent suffer serious long-term effects. About 400 people survive lightning strokes in the U.S. each year.
•  If your hair stands up in a storm, it could be a bad sign that positive charges are rising through you, reaching toward the negatively charged part of the storm
• The rapid expansion of heated air causes the thunder.
• If you see lightning and hear thunder at the same time, that lightning is in your neighborhood. If you see successive strokes of lightning in the same place on the horizon then you are in line with the storm, and it may be moving toward you.
• When you see lightning, count the time until you hear thunder. If that time is 30 seconds or less, the thunderstorm is within six miles (ten kilometers) of you and is dangerous. 
• Rubber shoes will not give you any meaningful protection from lightning.
  Taken from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0623_040623_lightningfacts_2.html