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Death by lightning strike may seem rare, but lightning has killed nearly three times as many people this year as tornadoes have, the National Weather Service (NWS) reports.
As of today (Sept. 12), 35 people have died from lightning strikes in the United States this year, the NWS said.
In contrast, 12 people have died from tornadoes in 2016,
the NWS reported.
"This year does seem to be unusually high," said John Jensenius, a lightning safety specialist with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine. "That's because the totals for the years have been in the 20s for quite a number of years now, since 2009."
Partly to blame may be lack of awareness about lightning's dangers and, as such, people's riskier behaviors during such storms, Jensenius said.
From 2010 to 2015, there were between 23 and 29 lightning-related deaths per year in the country. In 2009, that number reached 34, Jensenius said.
Coincidentally, 2009 is also the last year that lightning deaths surpassed annual deaths from tornadoes, which led to 21 fatalities that year.
Comment: Earlier this year the Puʻu ʻŌʻō cone, part of the Kilauea volcano, unleashed its largest volume of lava in the past 500 years. Lava also flowed into the ocean for the first time since 2013.