Unusual drought in 2020 shocks AccuWeather meteorologist: ‘I was a little surprised’

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Ptarmigan
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Unusual drought in 2020 shocks AccuWeather meteorologist: ‘I was a little surprised’
https://www.accuweather.com/en/severe-w ... ist/879052

There was a lightning drought in 2020.

In 2020, there were 170,549,822 cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, nearly a 24% decrease from 2019 when the company reported 222,988,888 lightning strikes, according to Vaisala.

“Vaisala has identified the most significant year-over-year decrease in lightning activity across the US since 1989,” the company said.


Lightning often occurs in the monsoon season.

One of the bigger factors was the monsoon season across the southwestern U.S. or lack thereof. Some have even nicknamed the 2020 monsoon season across the Southwest a "nonsoon" due to the scarcity of rain, ultimately causing drought conditions to increase across the region.

“Typically, we do see a lot of lightning strikes in the mountains of Colorado, northern New Mexico, into the high ground of northern Arizona and into parts of Utah as well during the mid- to late summer,” Cornish said.
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DoctorMu
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That string of 'canes battered the Death Ridge and hampered return flow.
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