The dramatic display that lit up the skies Wednesday night really did include 26,000 lightning strikes.
Erik Taylor, a meteorologist with the Baltimore-Washington Office of the National Weather Service, said the number of strikes were recorded “from Western Maryland, East and West Virginia, down into Northern and Central Virginia and even into the Eastern Shore.”
What is it that prompts the skies to unleash that kind of lightning? Taylor said the humidity was to blame.
“When it’s very humid with that moist air mass that’s in place, we get those electrified lightning shows,” he said.
The images that were captured during storms — the jagged lightning bolts that stretch across the skies, or strike Washington’s monuments and the top of the U.S. Capitol dome — are awe-inspiring, but Taylor urges the public, “When the thunder roars, go indoors.”
“You don’t even need to be in the vicinity of a thunderstorm,” he said. “If a thunderstorm is 10 miles away, you can still be struck by lightning even if it is not raining outside.”
It may seem a remote possibility, but Taylor said lightning strikes kill and injure hundreds of people each year.
“In 2024, there were 12 fatalities. In 2023, there were 14, and in 2022, there were 19,” he said.
The threat for lightning increases, he said, as a storm approaches and peaks overhead, and diminishes as it moves away. It’s important that taking shelter means going indoors.
“We don’t want you to hide underneath of a tree, we don’t want you to be in an open-air vehicle — we want you to shelter in place so lightning can’t get to you,” he said.
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