The National Weather Service released a report on being struck by lightning [Story here] that may be of interest to those of you read my previous posts on lightning (see below). The study confirms that men account for 82% of those struck by lightning, which I’ve blogged about before. More people are struck by lightning in July than in any other month.
Lightning fatalities by month
NOAA states that June, July and August have the most lightning in addition to having the most lightning fatalities, In fact, I was caught in a severe storm that rolled in quickly when I was running in a forest preserve in June. I suspect that the conditional probability of being struck by lightning doesn’t depend on seasonality as much as the picture above suggests, but I don’t have any proof.
The Washington Post Magazine ran a nice story about the ‘Spark Ranger’ Roy Sullivan who was struck by lightning seven times [Link]. A man who worked outside, Roy Sullivan was at an increased risk of getting struck by lightning. I’m not sure how that happened seven times.
For more reading:
Punk Rock Operations Research 
August 20th, 2013 at 9:45 am
Re the ‘Spark Ranger’: If you’re a man, you’re working out doors, and you like to listen to music while you work, you may need to be judicious about your playlist (as in, exclude http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKzBAQP8vig).
August 22nd, 2013 at 9:15 am
I would suspect that the seasonality is due to the increase in outdoor activity in summer months; it would be interesting to compare this to data about fatalities for other outdoor activities, like bicycle riding, swimming, mountain climbing, etc.
August 26th, 2013 at 11:46 am
Interesting read! Thanks Laura for sharing!