iStockphoto / joebelanger
Florida has seemingly always laid claim to being the ‘Lightning Capital‘ of America. The Sunshine State has now lost that title after a new study found the highest concentration of lightning to be in the Great Plains.
For years, it claimed to be the Lightning Capital of the World until it was revealed that Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela registered around 233 strikes per square kilometer each year. And while the actual ‘capital’ of Florida for lightning distribution has moved around for years from city to city, it has now jumped out west.
Oklahoma Is Now The Lightning Capital of America
A new study, U.S. Lightning Report from AEM, found that Oklahoma’s average of 73 lightning strikes per square mile was higher than that of Florida.
Within Oklahoma, Kay County saw the highest concentration of lightning strikes last year with 123.4 strikes per square mile. Interestingly, just to the south in Texas the Lonestar State saw the largest surge in lightning activity last year with an increase of 1.3 million lightning strikes over the state’s average.
It isn’t exactly clear what led to a surge in lightning activity last year, it was almost certainly an array of contributing factors, but there was a 9.8% increase in observed lightning strikes in 2025 over 2024.
In total, there were over 429.9 MILLION lightning strikes recorded last year. Everything peaked on June 15th when there were 929,016 lightning strikes recorded on that day.
And while Oklahoma has unseated Florida as the lightning capital of America, Texas didn’t fare well last year. Texas led the nation in storm intensity with 9,103 ‘Dangerous Thunderstorm Alerts’ which was over double the next closest state.
As a born and raised Floridian and Tampa Bay Lightning fan who was in the stands when they won their last Stanley Cup I propose simple solution: Tesla coils.
We have two inside the arena that get fired up whenever the Lightning score a goal. Why not start putting those on every street corner in the state and fire them off at random intervals? Surely nothing could go wrong. Lighting is lightning, man made or not. And if we want to regain the ‘Lightning Capital of America’ title this is the clearest path to doing so, obviously.