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Search This Site Web scuba-doc.com  Lightning and the Diver
Oceans Rarely Hit By Lightning  NASA has shown with satellite
imaging that the oceans rarely get hit with lightning.
Apparently the surface water does not heat up enough to cause
the positive charge needed for lightning to occur. Potentially,
lightning is the biggest weather danger for divers. Every year,
lightning kills more people in the US than tornadoes or
hurricanes. Only floods are more deadly. During the last three
decades, floods killed an average of 139 people a year,
lightning 87, tornadoes 82 and hurricanes 27 in the US,
according to national Weather Service figures.  The question
should be "what cautionaries should the scuba diver take?"
Should he get out of the water? Is he safer in the water than in
the boat? If shore diving - stay in the water or go ashore?
Over the years around ten percent of the lightning deaths in the
US have been in or near the water- the statistics don