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Monday, May 18, 2009

Land of lightning


The anecdotal evidence is backed up by hard facts – according to our Meteorological Department places like Subang (Selangor), Bayan Lepas (Penang) and Kluang (Johor) have a whopping 180 to 200 “thunderstorm days” (TDs) per year (the number of days that thunder can be heard at the weather monitoring stations there. )

In contrast, figures from the National Lightning Safety Institute (NLSI) of the United States show far fewer TDs in Japan (35-40), Australia (10-70), most of Europe (15-40) and England (a paltry 5-10). Even Florida, considered the “lightning capital” of the USA, has “only” 90-110 TDs.

Another NLSI measurement is that of “lightning density” where Kuala Lumpur is ranked fifth in the world with 48.3 lightning strikes (to the ground) for every square km of real estate. (The other top four lightning density sites are in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.)

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