A Year of Lightning

This animated map shows a year's worth of lightning strikes across the United States. The animation reveals the clear seasonal patterns of lightning storms across the U.S. As you watch the animation, you can see the country's lightning season move northwards with the changing seasons.

During winter, lightning is largely confined to the Gulf Coast before activity spreads north in spring. By summer, thunderstorms are lighting up much of the country, with particularly intense activity across Florida and the Southwest, before the storms retreat south again in autumn.

The map is one of the latest visualizations from the ever impressive mapped.earth. I recently featured mapped.earth's stunning animated maps of lighthouses around the world and the site has plenty more fascinating global visualizations to explore. In A Year of Lightning, instead of lighthouses, mapped.earth turns its attention to electrical storms, showing how lightning moves across different parts of the world throughout the year.

Alongside this map of the United States, there are visualizations of lightning activity in Europe, Africa, Bolivia, Colombia, Korea, Mexico and Central America, Türkiye, Venezuela and the Greater Antilles. In total, that is an astounding 663 million lightning flashes mapped (with Africa accounting for the vast majority at 474.8 million flashes).