PHOTOS: Woman says husband's truck was struck by lightning on Florida Turnpike
Credit: Lorann Mill
ORLANDO, Fla. - Some shocking photos sent to FOX 35 News show what happened to a man's truck after lightning allegedly struck it in Orlando.
Lorann Mill says her husband was driving down the Florida Turnpike in Orlando when lightning stuck his passenger side windshield.
Credit: Lorann Mill
The photos show the windshield cracked and burned while the dashboard inside was destroyed.
Just recently a South Florida driver was on I-75 when lightning struck his SUV, troopers said. The Florida Highway Patrol said the 48-year-old man from Naples was driving when a bolt of lightning struck the antenna on the back of his Nissan SUV, cracking the plastic.
Credit: Lorann Mill
Credit: Lorann Mill
Credit: Lorann Mill
Troopers said the lightning also left a 7-foot-long, 4-inch-wide gouge in the pavement on I-75.
While Florida has long been known as the lightning capital of the U.S., it may be giving up its title to Oklahoma, according to new data.
RELATED: Florida no longer the lightning capital of America, new data shows
Meteorologists at the Finland-based environmental monitoring company Vaisala found that Oklahoma had narrowly surpassed Florida for the most lightning flashes per square kilometer from 2016 to 2020.
"Lightning events per square kilometer that were recorded in the Sooner State totaled 83.4 during that period, while Florida saw a slightly lesser 82.8 lightning events," FOX News reports.
The company also reported that two Central Florida counties led the nation with an annual average of more than 159 lightning strikes per square kilometer.
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Seminole and Orange counties outshine any other county in the country for lightning, with an average of nearly 160 flashes of lightning per square kilometer each year, Bay News 9 reports.
"This means that ultimately, Orlando is the lightning capital of the United States," the news outlet reported.
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