THE WORLD'S THUNDER.

Shannon News, 25 August 1925, Page 1

THE WORLD'S THUNDER.

1U,000,000 STOR3ULS A YEAR. At any one moment, statistics show, there are on an average about 1800 thunderstorms in progress in the world, giving 360,000 lightning flashes an hour, or 100 a second. These are among the figures container in a report issued by the Air Ministry Meteorological Office on "The Distribution of Thunderstorms Over the Globe," the author being Mr. C. E. P. Brooks, M.Sc. Mr. Brooks explains that, on the whole, the earth will experience 16,000,000 thunderstorms a year, or 44,000 daily.

From more than 3000 stations observations are being made of thunderstorms, At certain tropical stations where, in rainy seasons, storms are severe at certain times of the day distant thunder is so common that it simply does not occur to the observer to enter it in his register. He may not ,in fact, consciously be aware of its occurence.

Java is probably the most thundery region of the earth, and this, Mr. Brooks points ont, should be taken into account in plannning air routes (o Australia. Areas where thunder is rarely or never heard include the Artie and the Antarctic regions. During an Artie expedition lasting two or three years, thunder, may be experienced once or, at most, twice.