Lightning Safety Week 2026: When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!
You're not immune to raw electricity, y'all
I’ve been a bit remiss — Alan Greenspan’s death threw me off, and I forgot to post: this week is Lightning Safety Awareness Week:
Lightning Safety Awareness Week June 21-27, 2026:
National Lightning Safety Awareness Week started in 2001 in order to call attention to lightning being an underrated killer. Since then, U.S. lightning fatalities has dropped from about 55 per year to less than 30. This reduction is lightning fatalities is largely due to the greater awareness of lightning danger and people seeking safety when thunderstorms threaten. During Lightning Safety Awareness Week, we encourage you to learn more about lightning and lightning safety. We will be sending out daily graphics on our social media platforms (Facebook & X) about lightning to help you become more informed. The graphics we plan on sending each day are in the tabs below. Please Share/Retweet to share this knowledge with others.
The National Weather Service in Paducah, Kentucky (where I linked) has messages for each day of the week, but I find that to be a bit overkill (cough cough). You can click through and see for yourself.
All of the lightning strike death stats are from John Jensenius of the National Lightning Safety Council. So far, 2 lightning strike fatalities have been reported in the U.S. in 2026.
Since we’re focusing on safety, let’s look at the graphics involving safety tips:
When I interviewed Jensenius some years back, and I mentioned the assumption the main activity when people (mainly men) are struck by lightning is golfing… nope, it’s more often fishing — being on open water.
If you think about it, people find it more difficult to find shelter if they’re out on water or at the beach, than if they’re golfing — there’s always the clubhouse to retreat to for refreshment, while they wait for the storm to pass.
Death and Destruction
While the deaths are much lower now than decades past, one can have ongoing trouble if one is struck and survive:
Here is a screenshot of the table on the page:
I’m a bit intrigued by the people claiming they acquired psychic abilities (though I’m extremely skeptical). You cannot actually click through to read the stories - you have to reach out to the survivors’ group (I’m not going to bother these people).
It’s really bad to get struck by lightning, okay?
No matter how cool the lightning looks.
Prior Lightning Strike Posts
18 April 2015, U.S. Lightning Strike Deaths: First Reported Death in 2026, and Final Count for 2025
16 Jul 2025, Lightning Strike Death Update: Now 11 U.S. Deaths for 2025
27 Jun 2025, Lightning Safety Week 2025: Some Safety Tips and Recent News
23 Jun 2025, Lightning Safety Week 2025: When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!
25 Jan 2024, U.S. Lightning Strike Deaths Total for 2023: 13
17 Jun 2023, Podcast: Lightning Strike Deaths
6 Aug 2023, Lightning Strikes Twice: Follow-up on Lightning Deaths
28 Jun 2024, International Lightning Safety Day: 2024 Lightning Death Toll Already at 3
8 Mar 2024, Updated U.S. Lightning Strike Deaths Total for 2023: 14
24 Jun 2024, 2024 National Lightning Safety Week