13 Things You Didn't Know About Thunderstorms

13 things you didn’t know about thunderstorms

- Michelle Crouch

1 Lightning strikes more than eight million times a day worldwide. That’s about 93 times per second.

2 How hot is a lightning bolt? About 50,000°F [or 28,000°C]— five times hotter than the surface of the sun.

3 Yes, it really can rain frogs, fish and other decidedly odd things. It’s a rare meteorological event, but scientists say strong winds from a tornado or from a storm can be powerful enough to propel animals and objects high into the air, and they have to come down eventually. A small Australian town reported hundreds of fish falling from the sky in 2010.

4 Is it a hurricane or a typhoon? They’re actually the same type of event. What is called a hurricane in the United States is a typhoon if it forms in the north-western Pacific. Meteorologists also use the general term tropical cyclone.