Marine Lightning in the United States

How dangerous are Marine Lightning events in the U.S.?

Where this hazard actually strikes varies sharply by region. The three states and marine areas absorbing the largest share of events are GULF OF MEXICO (1 events, 1 fatalities), a pattern driven more by climatology than by any one state's vulnerability.

Frequency and financial loss occupy a similar place in the NOAA catalog for this hazard. Its #54 event-count rank sits within four positions of its #54 combined-damage rank; the listed losses account for 0% of the catalog total. Human impact is a separate comparison: the hazard ranks #46 for fatalities and contributes <0.1% of recorded deaths.

The cumulative NOAA record has a smaller reported human toll than most hazard types on this measure: 1 fatality and 0 injuries among 1 event. PlainHazard's low human-toll band means fewer than five recorded fatalities during 2015-2025. It does not mean that an individual event is harmless, or that unrecorded impacts are zero.

The annual record is uneven rather than steadily rising or falling. Across the full 1-year window, annual event counts reflect natural year-to-year noise given how infrequently this hazard is recorded at all.

NOAA records too few marine lightning events (1 event) to express a stable per-event fatality rate; a single incident would swing it by a wide margin. The cumulative record stands at 1 fatality and 0 injuries, and no property or crop damage is recorded. Read those as counts, not as a rate.

NOAA entries are reports filed by local National Weather Service offices. Counts therefore reflect both observed weather and reporting practice; they do not measure unreported events, household exposure, or the probability of a future event at one address.