Has anyone else noticed this? Is this caused by some sort of freak weather (or other) phenomena or just a sign of the changing times...?
Over the past few weeks I've lost count of the amount of stories I've heard of people being struck and/or killed by lightening.
I know its not a totally rare thing, but it really always did seem like a case of wrong place at the wrong time. Until this past few weeks...when people are suddenly getting hit left right and centre and lightening storms are suddenly going crazy worldwide.
Europe was hit with a staggering 330,000 lightening strikes in just an 8 hour period on the 8th June. That has to take some record beating?!
https://robertscribbler.files.wordpr...pg?w=628&h=410
So I just done a little bit of digging to check out the statistics and there is certainly a very sudden and noticeable uptick in activity...
16th May
Sixty-five people have been killed by lightning strikes in Bangladesh in four days, as the country endures its annual severe storm season. Most of the deaths occurred in rural parts of north and central Bangladesh, with the victims predominantly farmers and construction workers, Reaz Ahmed, director general of Bangladesh’s Department of Disaster Management, told CNN on Monday. The deadliest recent day was Thursday, when 34 people were killed, he said. Twenty-one died the following day, seven on Saturday and three on Sunday.
29th May
One man has died and scores of people been injured, including children, as lightning strikes hit several parts of Europe, including a park in Paris and a football pitch in Germany.
A bolt of lightning killed a man hiking in mountains in south-west Poland on Saturday. Storm lightning injured three others in the same region, and a 61-year-old man drowned in flash flooding.
In Germany, more than 30 people were taken to hospital in the western village of Hoppstädten when lightning struck at the end of a junior football match. Three adults were seriously injured, including the referee who was hit directly and had to be resuscitated before being airlifted to hospital.
Eleven people, including eight children, were injured when lightning struck as they were celebrating a birthday party in a park in north-west Paris. The children, aged between seven and eight years old, took shelter beneath a tree when the storm broke. A hospital spokesman said one child remained in a serious condition.
4th June
Rock am Ring festival near Frankfurt was cancelled after at least 80 people got injure due to lightnings in the area.
7th June
A man and a five-year-old boy are in critical condition after being struck by lightning in Northern Ireland, as severe storms across the UK caused flash floods in some areas.
A seven-year-old girl was also seriously injured during the incident at Lisburn in County Antrim on Tuesday. It is understood the man was collecting his children from Killowen primary school.
8th June
330,000 strikes recorded over the EU during an 8 hour period (No Brexiters where intentionally harmed ;)
14th June
Brian was clearing up after dinner on Sunday evening when the lighting struck his home in Bedford.
He was cutting off a slice of turkey for his cat Emma when the force of the bolt hurled him several metres across the room.
Brian, who landed with the knife still in his hand, said: "It would have been quite ironic for me to have survived being struck by lightning, only to have stabbed myself with a razor sharp carving knife. :ROFL:
17th June
A plane flying from Manchester Airport to Morocco was diverted and forced to land in London when it was struck by lightning.
The Thomson Airways flight took off from Manchester for Agadir at 6.42pm on Thursday afternoon.
But the pilot was soon forced to make an unscheduled landing in London when the Boeing 737-800 suffered a lightning strike.
22nd June
At least 93 people have been killed and more than 20 injured by lightning strikes in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, officials say.
Most of the people who died were working on farms during torrential rains on Tuesday, reports said.
This site shows lightening strikes around the world in realtime:
http://www.lightningmaps.org/?lang=e...d=2;dl=2;dc=0;
Are more instances than normal being reported during this past month, or is there a sudden uptick in fatal strikes occuring?
~There has also been numerous reports of 'strange' lightening, coming from cloudless skies...meanwhile locally here this past week we have experienced strange lights in clouds too...
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co....ester-11496868
http://i4.manchestereveningnews.co.u...JS93027904.jpg
People living in Tameside and in Gorton claim to have seen a strange phenomenon in the night sky.
Mitesh Tailor, 31, said he was amazed to spot ‘glowing lights’ above Ashton-under-Lyne’s Hartshead Estate on Friday evening.
HR officer Mitesh first spotted the lights from his bedroom window on Friday, which he says have resumed even more brightly on Saturday and Sunday nights.
Intrigued by the phenomenon, Mitesh took photographs of what he saw shortly after midnight on Sunday.
He said: “At first I didn’t think much of it, on Friday I thought it was just normal but last night it was a lot brighter.
“It’s not the moon, that is on the other side of my house. They weren’t artificial lights either, the area is really dark.”
...I can confirm what this man says, after living in that very same area for some years, that part of the sky is very dark. There is very little light pollution over the Hartshead Pike area off towards the moors and if its not the moon I couldn't even begin to explain what it could be.