For the end of Lightning Awareness Week, I want to list a couple of articles that contain very useful information on where and when lightning strikes and the most likely ways that you can be affected.  Did you know that 15 percent of all lightning deaths are work-related?  And of those, 34 percent are to farmers and ranchers.  So it is important to be aware of lightning safety and what to do BEFORE you are exposed to it.

The CoCoRaHS blog this week has a great discussion of how lightning can affect you, both by direct strikes and from indirect effects.  You can find it at https://cocorahs.blogspot.com/2015/06/lightning-strike-life-changing.html.

John Jensenius of the National Weather Service has done a detailed study of where lightning deaths occur.  You can read the study and see some graphics at https://origin-www.nws.noaa.gov/om/lightning/resources/RecentLightningDeaths.pdf.

I also want to mention the Earth Science Picture of the Day email site.  Today’s picture below is a time-lapse photo of lightning from Athens, Greece, in 2010.  You can get details about the picture at https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2015/06/encore-super-thunderstorm-above-athens.html.

Source: Chris Kotsiopoulos, Earth Science Picture of the Day
Source: Chris Kotsiopoulos, Earth Science Picture of the Day