Meteorologist Jeff Ranieri

The lightning capital of the world had major competition on Wednesday with strong Northern Plain storms.

Even though Florida is the lightning capital of the world, it was bested on Wednesday by a state you may not think of when it comes to lightning... South Dakota. Our severe storm set up proved to be quite dangerous on Wednesday evening.

-- Excuse the interruption as we break away now to our storm update center....--

[Weather Plus Announcer:]

AND THE SCORE FOR THE 7:00 HOUR ON WEDNESDAY 6/6/07 IS:

South Dakota: 11096 strikes in one hour

Florida: 257 strikes in one hour

-- We now return you to our Weather Plus blogger Jeff Ranieri.... Jeff??? --

Thanks, Announcer!

As I was tracking the weather live on TV I turned on our lightning tracker and was amazed at the number of strikes in South Dakota. The radar picked up as you mentioned over 11,000 strikes in one hour.

In just a half hour there was over 6,000 bolts. While I even tend to think of the Northern Plains as a snowy and cold place all to often it's a great reminder that severe thunderstorms can happen just about anywhere. On average lightning strikes the earth 100 times per second.

Here's another view of the thunderstorm cell that produced the lightning.

We also took an image of hail our computer tracked with the same storm that was 3/4 inch and possibly larger.

While Wednesday was very busy, we are gearing up for Thursday PM as more strong storms could impact major places like Chicago. Remember, with lightning if you are close enough to hear thunder you are close enough to get struck. The best advice is to seek shelter immediately.

Jeff Ranieri
Meteorologist