Lightning Safety Week... How Appropriate! - 19 Action News|Cleveland, OH|News, Weather, Sports

Lightning Safety Week... How Appropriate!

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From NOAA lightning safety From NOAA lightning safety

With storms in the forecast each day of this work week, it's a good time to review lightning safety!  NOAA has posted a very helpful guide to lightning safety, myths, facts, etc:


If I were to say one thing about the lightning safety topic it would be to forget about that stupid rule of counting the seconds between the flash and the rumble to determine how far away the strike is.  That method does work, in general, but my issue is that people use it as an excuse to stay outside!  If you count 6 seconds, and figure the strike is 6 miles away, then some of you might want to stay outside.  A better rule to live by is... if you hear it, CLEAR IT!  If you can hear thunder, the strike is too close for you to be outside. 

Our best chance for storms each day this week will be from 2pm-8pm (as you would expect with summer!).  We have a lot of humidity in the air, so some storms will be form at night as well.  So, you could see rain at any time of day, but best shot at vigorous thunderstorms will be the late afternoon.  A cold front comes in toward the weekend and that should help to sweep out some of this sticky, muggy air and lower our storm chances. 

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