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⚡ Lightning capital of Texas & the U.S. is just 90 miles east of San Antonio

Flatonia, Texas, saw the most lightning of anywhere in the country in 2021

Flatonia, Texas was the lightning capital of the state in 2021 (Copyright 2022 by KSAT - All rights reserved.)

SAN ANTONIO – You know what they say: where there’s thunder, there’s... Thor? Well, yeah.

However, where there’s thunder there’s also... Lightning! And for one Texas town, there was a whole lot of lightning in 2021.

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Flatonia, Texas, which is located on Interstate 10 about 90 miles east of San Antonio, saw the most lightning strikes of anywhere in the state and in the country last year, according to meteorologists at Vaisala.

THE DATA

Flatonia saw 1,043 lightning events per square mile in 2021. Vaisala defines a lightning event as both any cloud-to-cloud or cloud-to-ground lightning strikes.

Lightning Density across the U.S. in 2021 (Vaisala)

Meteorologists at Vaisala used the above lightning density map to determine where the most strikes occurred using 2 kilometer grids. Then, the cities of towns in the grids with the highest densities were identified across each state.

For Texas, the winner was Flatonia in southern Fayette County, near the halfway point between San Antonio and Houston.

The top three states and towns with the most lightning in 2021; data courtesy of Vaisala (Copyright 2022 by KSAT - All rights reserved.)

Coming in at a close second and third were cities in Florida and Louisiana. Both Geneva and Maurepas are designated as ‘unincorporated communities’ in their respective states.

If you’d like to see where the rest of the states ranked or read more about Vaisala’s lightning research, click here.


Get the latest forecast from the KSAT Weather Authority team on the weather page or by downloading the KSAT Weather Authority app on your mobile phone.


About the Author
Kaiti Blake headshot

Kaiti Blake is a child weather-geek-turned-meteorologist. A member of the KSAT Weather Authority, Kaiti is a co-host of the Whatever the Weather video podcast. After graduating from Texas Tech University, Kaiti worked at WJTV 12 in Jackson, Mississippi and KTAB in Abilene.

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