Want to find out who gets the most lightning around the greater Jacksonville area? There is a digital online map that shows you the frequency of lightning based on selected geographic areas.
The total cloud to ground (CG) lightning flashes from 1988 to 2017 have been collected in a database showing Duval county had 522 thousand total Flashes.
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The heatmaps represent the times of the year when lighting is more pronounced with June through early September standing out as very active months.
The most likely time for thunder around Jacksonville is July. You are guaranteed to see lightning at least once during the week of July 9-15. In fact the maps get even more granular showing the strikes per hour. Records show lightning has struck 100% of the time at 4 p.m.
Lightning is rare in the morning but targets the afternoon hours due to our hot summers driving the sea breezes inland which triggers daily rounds of storms late in the day.
In addition to the relative frequency of lightning, you can also look for the total number of CG flashes for a given area. Something that comes in handy around airports.
Based on detected lightning within 10 miles of airports, it would make sense that storms cause more delays in central Florida. About 275 thousand strikes occurred within 10 miles of the JIA compared to 277 around Jax NAS. This is about the same as Palm Beach and just under Daytona Beach. Orlando International Airport however sees storms putting out more than 422 thousand lightning strikes.