The rate of lightning casualties in the US and several other countries has decreased markedly during the last century. Reasons have been suggested for this six-fold drop in the fatality rate, but no systematic approach has been taken to clarify the causes. Fortunately, a book by Kretzer (1895) contains a large number of reports of lightning-caused casualties and damages from 1891 to 1894. For comparison, then, identical summaries of Storm Data lightning reports were made for 1991 to 1994.
Publications listed in Table 1 have described the number, rate, activity, and/or location of lightning victims and lightning-caused damages for part or all of the United States and other countries. However, results of these studies and summaries are not easily comparable, and all of the important factors are not included in every publication. For the purpose of improving guidelines for lightning safety through education, it is not apparent from these publications which factors of human behavior, location, or activity are critical. In addition, prior compilations did not identify in any detail the types of objects on the ground that are damaged or destroyed by lightning.
| UNITED STATES | Curran et al. (1997, 2000) | Deaths, injuries, damages | |
|
Duclos and Sanderson (1990) |
Deaths | ||
| López and Holle (1995) | Deaths, injuries | ||
| López and Holle (1996) | Deaths, injuries | ||
| López and Holle (1998) | Deaths | ||
|
Mogil et al. (1977) |
Deaths, injuries | ||
|
Taussig (1969) |
Deaths | ||
|
Weigel (1976) |
Deaths | ||
|
Wood (1985) |
Deaths | ||
|
Zegel (1967) |
Deaths |
||
| STATES | Colorado: | López et al. (1995) | Deaths, injuries, damages |
| Colorado, Utah, Wyoming: | Holle et al. (1996) | Damages | |
| Florida: | Duclos et al. (1990) | Deaths, injuries | |
| Holle et al. (1992) | Deaths, injuries, damages | ||
| Holle et al. (1993) | Deaths, injuries, damages | ||
| Lushine (1996) | Deaths | ||
| Paxton and Morales (1997) | Deaths, injuries | ||
| Michigan: | Ferrett and Ojala (1992) | Deaths, injuries, damages | |
| Shearman and Ojala (1999) | Deaths, injuries | ||
| State Climatologist (1967) | Deaths, injuries | ||
| North Carolina: | Langley et al. (1991) | Deaths | |
| OTHER COUNTRIES | Australia: | Coates et al. (1993), Prentice (1973) | Deaths |
| Australia, England, US, and Wales: | Golde and Lee (1976) | Deaths | |
| Britain: | Thomas (1990) | Deaths | |
| Canada: | Hornstein (1961, 1962) | Deaths, damages | |
| Great Britain and Ireland: | Baker (1984) | Deaths | |
| England and Wales: | Elsom (1993), Lawson (1889) | Deaths | |
| England, Wales, and Australia | Golde and Lee (1976) | Deaths | |
| France: | Gourbière et al. (1997), Gourbière (1998) | Deaths | |
| Hungary: | Taussig (1969) | Deaths, injuries | |
| India: | Nizamuddin (1992) | Deaths | |
| Netherlands: | Ten Duis (1998) | Deaths | |
| Singapore: | Pakiam et al. (1981) | Deaths | |
| Spain: | Aguado et al. (2000) | Deaths, injuries, damages | |
| US, Canada, Spain: | López and Holle (1998) | Deaths | |
| West Germany: | Taussig (1969) | Deaths, injuries | |
| Zimbabwe: | Chitauro (1990) | Deaths | |
In recent years, annual summaries of lightning have been published for the US in the following three forms.
The Warning and Forecast Branch of the National Weather Service published "A Summary of Natural Hazard Deaths for [1990] in the United States" in hard-copy form for each year from 1990 to 1995. At first, it was attached to the publication Aware that was published by the Office of Meteorology at National Weather Service Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. The summary for all weather phenomena was between 9 and 12 pages in length.
Hazardous weather data, including lightning, are available beginning in 1995 at www.nws.noaa.gov/om/hazstats.htm.