MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Thunderstorms can happen year-round in the Mid-South. From Summer thunderstorms to Spring severe weather, things can get pretty active, leading to plenty of lightning strikes.
Vaisala is a company that tracks lightning across the globe including the United States. Their data is shared every year in an annual report. It turns out in 2023, the country saw a total of 242,101,157 lightning strikes. The report for 2023 highlights this lightning and gives details on the lightning we see in the Mid-South.
When talking about lightning, lightning density, or the number of events/strokes per square kilometer is the best way to compare locations across the United States.
Speaking of states, the three states in the Mid-South rank in the top 10 states for lightning density in the country. Mississippi saw the second highest lightning density in the country in 2023 at 104 events per square kilometer. Arkansas came out to fourth with 85.7 events and Tennessee at ninth with 62.6 events.
These numbers were bolstered by an above average lightning year which can be seen in the map below. Portions of the Mid-South and the Deep South saw a well above-average year when it came to lightning compared to the average.
Looking more local, this data can be shown for metropolitan areas in the United States. Five out of the top 10 cities in the U.S. are located in Florida, with Miami–Fort Lauderdale taking the top spot. Memphis is actually featured on this list at ninth with 15 strokes per square kilometer.
If you remove cities immediately along the coast or directly impacted by coastal weather, it turns out Memphis would rank first in the nation for lightning density.
Having a more active lightning does track with the weather that we saw in 2023. Starting the year, the Mid-South saw a very active severe season leading to 16 tornadoes including two EF3s. On top of this, a stormy summer added to lightning counts in the Mid-South.
