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It looks pretty unlikely for a person anywhere to go 40 years without witnessing lightning from looking at these visualizations, honestly. I'm living in an are

It looks pretty unlikely for a person anywhere to go 40 years without witnessing lightning from looking at these visualizations, honestly. I'm living in an area which is pretty much in a dead zone on these graphs and have seen at least some lightning each year. Admittedly, most years only have pretty small bolts but that's a different story

orangepurple 4y ago
It is absolutely possible if you live on an island in the Pacific Ocean such as Hawaii.
- heywoodlh 4y ago
  Born and grew up on Oahu and moved to the mainland when I was a teen. Can definitely say that while I saw bright flashes of light from lightning during hurricane season I never actually saw the bolts of lightning until moving away from Hawaii.
owenversteeg 4y ago
It just takes a few factors to bring someone's chances way down. For example: - Someone who is indoors for the most lightning-active hours can easily bring their chance of seeing lightning way down [0] - If you live in a dead zone, you can see 2+ orders of magnitude less lightning per year [0 and 1] - People vary a lot in how much time they spend outdoors. Some people spend a half an hour outdoors each day, some spend five; there's another order of magnitude. - If you live in a city or a valley, you often have a far more limited view as opposed to someone on a hill or flat land. If you live on the lower floors of an apartment building in a city, for example, you may only see the rest of your block, versus others that can see several square miles. Just those four factors together and you've got a plausible several order of magnitude difference in how much lightning people see. I think it's totally possible there's a good chunk of the population that's never seen it. [0] https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/4967/are-lightning-storms-more-common-at-night https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/4967/are-li... [1] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/85600/global-lightning-activity https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/85600/global-lightn... (also referenced in gp)

orangepurple 4y ago

It is absolutely possible if you live on an island in the Pacific Ocean such as Hawaii.

heywoodlh 4y ago
Born and grew up on Oahu and moved to the mainland when I was a teen. Can definitely say that while I saw bright flashes of light from lightning during hurricane season I never actually saw the bolts of lightning until moving away from Hawaii.

owenversteeg 4y ago

It just takes a few factors to bring someone's chances way down. For example: - Someone who is indoors for the most lightning-active hours can easily bring their chance of seeing lightning way down [0] - If you live in a dead zone, you can see 2+ orders of magnitude less lightning per year [0 and 1] - People vary a lot in how much time they spend outdoors. Some people spend a half an hour outdoors each day, some spend five; there's another order of magnitude. - If you live in a city or a valley, you often have a far more limited view as opposed to someone on a hill or flat land. If you live on the lower floors of an apartment building in a city, for example, you may only see the rest of your block, versus others that can see several square miles. Just those four factors together and you've got a plausible several order of magnitude difference in how much lightning people see. I think it's totally possible there's a good chunk of the population that's never seen it. [0] https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/4967/are-lightning-storms-more-common-at-night https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/4967/are-li... [1] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/85600/global-lightning-activity https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/85600/global-lightn... (also referenced in gp)