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The result is the nearly daily development of clouds that produce thunderstorms. For example, "Lightning Alley"—an area from Tampa to Orlando—experiences an extremely high density of lightning strikes. As of 2007, there were as many as 50 strikes per square mile (about 20 per km 2) per year.
According to the CDC there are about 6,000 lightning strikes per minute, or more than 8 million strikes every day. [11] As of 2008 there were about 240,000 "lightning strikes incidents" around the world each year. [12] According to National Geographic in 2009, about 2,000 people were killed annually worldwide by lightning. [13]
Storms are named for historical reasons to avoid confusion when communicating with the public, as more than one storm can exist at a time. Names are drawn in order from predetermined lists. For tropical cyclones, names are assigned when a system has one-, three-, or ten-minute winds of more than 65 km/h (40 mph).
When such storms have a brief period of severe weather associated with them, it is known as a pulse severe storm. Pulse severe storms are poorly organized and occur randomly in time and space, making them difficult to forecast. Single-cell thunderstorms normally last 20–30 minutes. [15]
No thunderstorms: 2 Isolated thunderstorms. Lightning is very infrequent, 1–5 cloud-to-ground strikes in a five-minute period. 3 Widely scattered thunderstorms. Lightning is infrequent, 6–10 cloud-to-ground strikes in a five-minute period. 4 Scattered thunderstorms. Lightning is frequent, 11–15 cloud-to-ground strikes in a 5-minute period. 5
This template should be added to the end of stub articles which are biographies of a meteorologist or a climatologist. {{Weather-stub}} and the associated stub category Category:Weather event stubs; This template should be added only to the end of stub articles which describe a specific historical weather event.
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It originates from a mass of storm clouds at an altitude of more than 1 km (0.6 mi), and occurs for 140 to 160 nights a year, nine hours per day, and with lightning flashes from 16 to 40 times per minute. [3] It occurs over and around Lake Maracaibo, typically over a bog area formed where the Catatumbo River flows into the lake. [4]