Take appropriate shelter when you can count 30 seconds or less between lightning and thunder. Precautions should be taken even if the thunderstorm is not directly overhead. Lightning may strike several kilometres away from the parent cloud. There is an 80% chance that the next strike will happen within that 10 Km. If you can count less than 30 seconds between the lightning strike and the thunder, this means that the storm is less than 10 Km away. To judge how close lightning is, count the seconds between the flash and the thunder clap. Because light travels at a faster speed than sound, you can see a lightning bolt before the sound of thunder reaches you. Thunder may have a sharp cracking sound when lightning is close by, compared to rumbling noise produced by more distant strokes. Thunder is the noise caused by the explosive expansion of air due to the heat generated by the lightning discharge. The people who do survive a lightning strike often report a variety of long-term debilitating symptoms including memory loss, attention deficits, sleep disorders, numbness, dizziness, and an inability to sit for long periods of time. Although the chances of being struck by lightning are estimated to be 1 in 700,000, 73 people are killed and 300 are injured every year, on average. These huge electrical sparks are one of the leading causes of weather related deaths in North America. Lightning tends to strike higher ground and prominent objects, especially good conductors of electricity such as metal. Each lightning stroke can carry up to 100 million volts of electricity and leap from cloud to cloud or cloud to ground and vice versa. Lightning, which occurs during all thunderstorms, is the result of a buildup and discharge of electrical energy between positively and negatively charged areas.
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