The Lion's Den: This state is America’s 'lightning king'

New research reveals the U.S. states that saw the most lightning activity in 2019, with Texas topping the list.

The Lone Star State surpassed the other states, according to a list compiled by lightning detection network Earth Networks. It had just over 16 million lightning counts last year, a figure that surpassed states such as Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Florida. The lightning count includes in-cloud flashes and cloud-to-ground flashes.

“Texas is the USA’s 2019 Lightning King; seeing 16,032,609 total lx [lightning] strikes and having two counties with the top lightning counts according to our network,” said Earth Networks, in the report. “This has a lot to do with Texas’ overall size as our second largest state by area at 268,567 square miles. Although it didn’t claim the top spot, Florida, the ‘Lightning Capital’ of the country, squeaked in to round out the top five states with 5,271,987 strikes and two counties in the top five.”