Chris Vagasky, an analyst for Vaisala, who conducts weather and environmental studies, describes the event as a “6-stroke lightning flash.” And says that six separate surges of electricity hit in the same spot in less than a second.
“When you think of cloud-to-ground lightning and you look out and you see lightning flickering, each of those flickers is a stroke that comes down,” Vagasky, also a member of the National Lightning Safety Council explained. “For negative cloud-to-ground flashes, which is what this was, there’s generally multiple strokes to a flash.”
On average, 23 people a year are killed by lightning in the United States. And more than 2,000 people annually die throughout the world from lightning strike events. The deaths in Lafayette Park bring the number in the U.S. this year to 11.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website “Lightning strikes the United States about 25 million times a year. Although most lightning occurs in the summer, people can be struck at any time of year.” Annually hundreds of people are “severely injured.”
