How often does lightning strike lakes?

Answer 1

That is an interesting question, usually when lightning strikes it usually hits the highest point possible in the vicinity of downward motion. When lightning "strikes", something called a stepped leader leaves the cloud, sort of "looking" for a path to follow. When this leader gets close to an object sticking up above the flat surrounding surface, something called a streamer leaps up from the object things like tree's, buildings, animals, Golf clubs or fishing poles, whatever, if they're the tallest object around. Also at times there is an ionized path that lightning will take, meaning an area of high electrical conductivity (it'll make the hairs on your skin and head stand on end, it feels really tingly), that's a point where the steeped leader is trying to connect with a streamer, when they connect or if you add something to decrease the channel width (by holding something conductive up) ZAP! you get whacked with one Billion volts. As for it striking a lake, electricity will always follow a path of least resistance. While one would expect that lightning would probably hit lakes quite often due to their high conductivity based on solubles in the lakes, area, volume, ect. I'd imagine it's probably not that frequent because most lakes are surrounded by taller objects than the lake itself. This creates a shorter path that the electricity would have to bridge. I'd say more frequently that lightning wouldn't hit the actual lake, but rather say the mast of a yacht on that lake, or the fishing pole a fisherman is holding up while on that lake, since that would make that object the tallest point in a very large open space. Though respectively I haven't been able to find any "exact" numbers. Probably because lightning flashes hit various pieces of ground/water about 22 million times each year in the United States alone.

Answer 2

Lightning strikes bodies of water, including lakes, fairly regularly during thunderstorms. However, the actual frequency can vary depending on the region and weather conditions. Lakes can attract lightning due to their open expanse of water and the presence of taller objects, such as trees or buildings, along the shoreline.