Saturday, December 27, 2014 Current Weather Loading Current
Weather.... Published: Sunday, 7/29/2001  Lightning can be
strikingly beautiful, or strikingly dangerous.  Lightning can be
strikingly beautiful, or strikingly dangerous.  It all depends
on whether you are in a safe place and can thrill at witnessing
this awesome, dazzling spectacle of nature, or whether you are
caught outdoors - unsheltered and vulnerable.  The air within a
lightning strike can reached 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and
lightning can heat its path five times hotter than the surface
of the sun. One ground stroke can generate between 100 million
and one billion volts of electricity.  Such heat and power
generate great pressure waves followed by a series of
compressions - we simply call it thunder. Yet make no mistake:
Thunder makes the noise but lightning does the work.  The United
States experiences more than 25 million cloud-to-ground
lightning strikes a year, according to the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. Florida, th