Lightning Photography

An old estimate of the frequency of lightning on Earth was 100 times a second. Now that there are satellites that can detect lightning, including in places where there is nobody to observe it, it is known to occur on average 44 ± 5 times a second, for a total of nearly 1.4 billion flashes per year; 75% of these flashes are either cloud-to-cloud or intra-cloud and 25% are cloud-to-ground.
The maps on the right show that lightning is not distributed evenly around the planet. Approximately 70% of lightning occurs in the tropics where the majority of thunderstorms occur. The place where lightning occurs most often (according to the data from 2004–2005) is near the small village of Kifuka in the mountains of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the elevation is around 975 metres (3,200 ft). On average this region receives 158 lightning strikes per square kilometre (approx. 0.4 square mile) a year. Above the Catatumbo river, which feeds Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, Catatumbo lightning flashes several times per minute, 140 to 160 nights per year, accounting for 25% of the world's production of upper-atmospheric ozone. Singapore has one of the highest rates of lightning activity in the world. The city of Teresina in northern Brazil has the third-highest rate of occurrences of lightning strikes in the world. The surrounding region is referred to as the Chapada do Corisco ("Flash Lightning Flatlands"). In the US, Central Florida sees more lightning than any other area. For example, in what is called "Lightning Alley", an area from Tampa, to Orlando, there are as many as 50 strikes per square mile (about 20 per km²) per year. The Empire State Building is struck by lightning on average 23 times each year, and was once struck 8 times in 24 minutes.
Roy Sullivan held a Guinness World Record after surviving 7 different lightning strikes across 35 years.
In July 2007, lightning killed up to 30 people when it struck a remote mountain village Ushari Dara in northwestern Pakistan.