Lightning Safety Week: Know the Statistics!

The National Weather Service for the Denver/Boulder forecast office published a series of graphs on their Twitter account earlier this week showing lightning data as part of Lightning Safety Week. I thought it would be important to re-post those graphs and some other data here to highlight the danger hikers face from lightning while hiking in the mountains of Colorado in the summer. The first Tweet shows the most dangerous counties in Colorado:

Since 1980, Colorado has had 100 fatal lightning strikes and nearly 500 lightning related injuries. Below is the top 3 counties and number of fatalities and injuries recorded. More information for each of the 64 Colorado Counties can be found here.

1) El Paso County (includes Pikes Peak area): 10 fatalities / 84 injuries

2) Larimer County (includes RMNP): 10 fatalities / 76 injuries

3) Jefferson County (west of & western portion of Denver): 9 fatalities / 38 injuries

The second Tweet is in conjunction with the three graphs mentioned above:

The following charts show lightning flashes per day of the year as well as lightning casualties per hour of the day and day of the week. Are you planning a hike for a Saturday afternoon this July? We highly recommend you check the forecast before you go (click here for the RMNP forecast).

The key takeaways from this data is that danger from lightning peaks during the early afternoons of the summer months. Additionally, as you might expect, the highest number of casualties occur on weekends when more people are out recreating. For more information on lightning, and how to stay safe while out on the trail, please click here.


Jeff
RockyMountainHikingTrails.com
HikinginGlacier.com
TetonHikingTrails.com

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