Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is Christian Seger. Across the United States, lightning has
Speaker 1: killed fifteen people so far in seventeen. That's according to
Speaker 1: National Weather Service data. While those deaths are tragic, that's
Speaker 1: fewer than half the thirty eight lightning deaths that the
Speaker 1: nation had in sixteen, And we're on track to have
Speaker 1: the lowest number of recorded lightning fatalities since nineteen forty
Speaker 1: because that's the earliest year for which the federal government
Speaker 1: has data. The government actually maintains a year by year
Speaker 1: breakdown of deaths from lightning and other weather threats during
Speaker 1: that period. But if you look at those historical numbers,
Speaker 1: what's most startling is the long term decrease in lightening
Speaker 1: deaths over that period. In nineteen forty three, the most
Speaker 1: lethal year on record, four hundred and thirty two people
Speaker 1: were killed by lightning, and throughout the nineteen forties, and
Speaker 1: average of three hundred and twenty nine point three people
Speaker 1: died each year. But in the nineteen fifties and the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties the rates started dropping dramatically and steadily kept decreasing,
Speaker 1: to the point where over the two thousand tens the
Speaker 1: average annual fatality rate is about a tenth of what
Speaker 1: it was during the nineteen forties. So why are so
Speaker 1: many fewer people being killed by lightning these days than
Speaker 1: in the past. Well, one major reason is urbanization. In
Speaker 1: nineteen forty, according to the US Census Bureau, forty three
Speaker 1: point five per cent of the nation's population lived in
Speaker 1: rural areas. By two thousand and ten, that number was
Speaker 1: down to nineteen point three percent, with more than eighty
Speaker 1: percent of the population living in cities. And today, according
Speaker 1: to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the average Americans spends
Speaker 1: nine of their time indoors, which generally is the safest
Speaker 1: place to be during a lightning storm, but that does
Speaker 1: mean that you can't be injured or killed by lightning
Speaker 1: inside a house. And seven decades ago, not only where
Speaker 1: there are more people in rural areas, but they also
Speaker 1: spent more of their time working outdoors, where they were
Speaker 1: more vulnerable to lightning, as Ronald Holla, and meteorologist who
Speaker 1: studies lightning deaths, explained in the Atlantic and farmers in
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties still used teams of horses to pull
Speaker 1: their plows, and it took them all day to finish
Speaker 1: tilling a twenty acre field. Modern farmers, in contrast, are
Speaker 1: more likely to be sitting inside a fully enclosed tractor
Speaker 1: with a metal housing that offers lightning protection. When people
Speaker 1: are killed by lightning these days, it often happens when
Speaker 1: they're enjoying some outdoor leisure activity. That's according to a
Speaker 1: seventeen analysis of lightning deaths over the past decade by
Speaker 1: John S. Jen Senius Jr. He's a eightning safety specialist
Speaker 1: with National Weather Service. Jen Senius found that of the
Speaker 1: three d and fifty two deaths over the past decade,
Speaker 1: thirty three people died while fishing, while twenty were on
Speaker 1: the beach, eighteen were camping, in sixteen were boating. When
Speaker 1: it came to sports, soccer players accounted for twelve deaths,
Speaker 1: while golfers accounted for nine, a piece of information that
Speaker 1: shows a golf course isn't necessarily the most dangerous place
Speaker 1: during a storm. Farming and ranching, in contrast, accounted for
Speaker 1: just seventeen of the recent lightning depths. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by Patrick J. Kaiger, produced by Tristan McNeil, and
Speaker 1: For more on this and other topics, please visit us
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com,