Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff is Christian Seger. Across the United States, lightning has killed fifteen people so far in seventeen. That's according to National Weather Service data. While those deaths are tragic, that's fewer than half the thirty eight lightning deaths that the nation had in sixteen, And we're on track to have the lowest number of recorded lightning fatalities since nineteen forty because that's the earliest year for which the federal government
has data. The government actually maintains a year by year breakdown of deaths from lightning and other weather threats during that period. But if you look at those historical numbers, what's most startling is the long term decrease in lightening deaths over that period. In nineteen forty three, the most lethal year on record, four hundred and thirty two people were killed by lightning, and throughout the nineteen forties, and average of three hundred and twenty nine point three people
died each year. But in the nineteen fifties and the nineteen sixties the rates started dropping dramatically and steadily kept decreasing, to the point where over the two thousand tens the average annual fatality rate is about a tenth of what it was during the nineteen forties. So why are so many fewer people being killed by lightning these days than
in the past. Well, one major reason is urbanization. In nineteen forty, according to the US Census Bureau, forty three point five per cent of the nation's population lived in rural areas. By two thousand and ten, that number was down to nineteen point three percent, with more than eighty
percent of the population living in cities. And today, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the average Americans spends nine of their time indoors, which generally is the safest place to be during a lightning storm, but that does mean that you can't be injured or killed by lightning
inside a house. And seven decades ago, not only where there are more people in rural areas, but they also spent more of their time working outdoors, where they were more vulnerable to lightning, as Ronald Holla, and meteorologist who studies lightning deaths, explained in the Atlantic and farmers in the nineteen forties still used teams of horses to pull their plows, and it took them all day to finish
tilling a twenty acre field. Modern farmers, in contrast, are more likely to be sitting inside a fully enclosed tractor with a metal housing that offers lightning protection. When people are killed by lightning these days, it often happens when they're enjoying some outdoor leisure activity. That's according to a seventeen analysis of lightning deaths over the past decade by John S. Jen Senius Jr. He's a eightning safety specialist
with National Weather Service. Jen Senius found that of the three d and fifty two deaths over the past decade, thirty three people died while fishing, while twenty were on the beach, eighteen were camping, in sixteen were boating. When it came to sports, soccer players accounted for twelve deaths, while golfers accounted for nine, a piece of information that shows a golf course isn't necessarily the most dangerous place during a storm. Farming and ranching, in contrast, accounted for
just seventeen of the recent lightning depths. Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Kaiger, produced by Tristan McNeil, and For more on this and other topics, please visit us at how stuff works dot com,