(CNN)There was some good news to come out of 2020: fewer tornadoes and fewer lightning strikes across the United States. But sadly, fewer tornadoes did not mean fewer fatalities — a stark reminder that the timing and location of such storms can be critical. With a preliminary tally of 1,053, 2020 saw the lowest annual…
Lightning Burns $1.7 Million S.C. Mansion to the Ground — as Another Strike Blocks 911 Calls
A decades-old South Carolina mansion burned to the ground due to a lightning strike on Sunday as family members tried desperately to reach police for an hour and a half — only to learn that another strike damaged the 911 cell tower, reports say. Keith Guest, his wife, Stephanie, and their two children expected police…
Lightning sensor launch Saturday brings decades of work to fruition
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (Feb. 15, 2017) — In the mid 1990s, when NASA built two identical Lightning Imaging Sensors (just in case), Hugh Christian planned all along to send the flight spare into space. He just didn’t expect it to take almost 20 years for that to happen. Christian’s two decade wait is scheduled to end…
Satellites suffer mystery blackouts: Thunderstorms on the edge of space may be causing loss of GPS signals
They were sent into orbit to measure the Earth’s invisible magnetic field. But a cluster of scientific satellites have been suffering mysterious blackouts as they circle the planet. Scientists were left puzzled about why the three satellites launched by the European Space Agency have regularly lost their navigation signal when passing over the equator above…
Tornadoes, huge hailstones as Coast clobbered
Three tornadoes, hail as big as tennis balls and 2000 lightning strikes were reported on the West Coast yesterday, and another front is forecast to strike later today. Civil defence group leader for the West Coast, Chris Raine, said forecasters expected the weather to go downhill again early afternoon, and the rest of the day…