A recent article in the Bulletin of The American Meteorologist reported on global studies of lightning over the last 30 years.  It was reported that there are 35 to 55 lightning flashes per second over the globe during the full year.  They examined the areas with high amounts of lightning.  The satellite data covered the area from 38⁰ south to 38⁰ north latitude.

The areas with the largest number of flashes per square km per year are in the Congo River Basin.  Other areas include the coasts of Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and several mountainous regions.  Over half of all the areas of high lightning density occurred in Africa.  The most frequent area in the United States is over the Everglades in  Florida.  Nearby is Fort Meyers, which reports about 80 days a year with thunderstorms.  By comparison, Hartford has about 12 days a year with thunderstorms.

The area with the most lightning in the world is Lake Maracaibo, which is connected to the Caribbean Sea, in Venezuela with 233 flashes per square km per year.  There is virtually no lightning in January or February when the ITCZ is far to the south.  Almost all of the lightning is at night.  The nocturnal lightning is so frequent that they were used by Caribbean navigators as a lighthouse in colonial times.  These thunderstorms are known locally as the “Lighthouse of Catatumbo” after the Catatumbo River in the region.  They were mentioned in a 1598 poem by the Spanish poet Felix Lope De Vega as what prevented an English pirate ship from attacking in the region.  Tourists can take boat tours to observe the nocturnal storms.