Kids Want To Know: Why Storms At Night?

7:37 PM, Nov 8, 2013   |    comments
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GREENSBORO, NC -- Lilianna asked, "Why does lightning and thundering come late at night?"

WFMY News 2 Meteorologist Ed Matthews explains, "Lightning is a by-product of a thunderstorm. When you have a thunderstorm, you have thunder and of course you have lightning as well. "

And its interesting because thunderstorm can happen anytime day or night. But they're more likely to occur during the day hours actually between 3 pm and 9 pm. But why does it seem like we actually see more lightning at night as compared to during the day?

"Well I have a couple of theories. It could be because when its dark, you can actually see the lightning a lot better. And also because some of those afternoon thunderstorms extend into the overnight period as well."

Lightning by the numbers:

On earth we have about 100 lightning strikes each second and that adds up fast.

86 million lightning strikes each day

North Carolina, 500,000 lightning strikes each year

The Triad has 44 days when we have lightning

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