SWFL peak lightning season brings out ‘a lot of raw power’

You can get hit by lightning even if there is not a cloud in the sky near you. That is because it can travel for miles away from a storm. Right now, we are in the peak of the lightning season and there has already been extensive damage.

Looking at a lightning strike, it may seem like it strikes vertically. The strikes can travel for 10 miles and sometimes in any direction before hitting the ground.

A video from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration shows how lightning starts as a spiderweb, going in many directions. Matt Devitt, a WINK News Weather Authority meteorologist, said that is why people need to take cover when they hear thunder.

“You can have cloud to cloud lightning and then you can also have the parent thunderstorm,” Devitt said. “But the strike can go several miles in every single direction. And in some of those rare cases, you can get struck from one of those lightning bolts.”

In Clearwater Beach over the weekend, eight people felt a jolt. It was not a direct hit from lightning that struck from miles away. The incident is alarming because Southwest Florida experiences a lot of lightening. According to WeatherBug, Cape Coral is ranked second in the country for lighting cities with more than half-a-million people. Tampa is first.

Wendy Ferrill told WINK News she was driving through Fort Myers when she took a lightning strike video. She said it came out of nowhere.

“We had heard, it almost sounded like a bowling alley going on above us; it was that loud,” Ferrill said. “Then I think as soon as the lightning struck, honestly, I don’t remember much after that because I was just in shock.”

Moreover, be ready, as it is the peak lightning season.

“We have had clusters of storms with over 1,000 lightning strikes plus,” Devitt said, “and that’s a lot of raw power.”