Watch: Lightning strikes skyscraper in New York

NEW YORK CITY – On Wednesday evening, a violent storm front moved through the Tri-State region, creating a light spectacle worthy of Mother Nature, with numerous flashes of lightning lighting up the sky.

A video from New Jersey showed the power of the storm, with at least one lightning bolt striking a skyscraper in southern Manhattan.

Lightning strikes in tall buildings are common. Due to extensive lightning protection systems such as arresters and grounding devices, the strikes are usually not felt inside these buildings.

One World Trade Center is 1,776 feet tall, while the nearby Empire State Building is about 1,250 feet tall.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has previously stated that One WTC attracts more lightning strikes than the surrounding area due to its height alone.

Estimates of how often One WTC is hit each year were not immediately available, but operators of the 102-story Empire State Building said their skyscraper is hit about 25 times a year.

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In addition to the lightning strikes, winds tore down trees and downed power lines across the region, causing at least a quarter of a million power outages.

Data from PowerOutage.us showed that the hardest-hit communities were in Pennsylvania, with New Jersey and New York also reporting significant outages.

The severe storms produced hurricane-force winds, with a gust of 77 mph (124 km/h) reported at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut.

The impact of the dangerous weather caused travel delays at many major airports, including Washington-Reagan Airport, with some passengers reporting having to wait on the plane for more than an hour and a half until the storms subsided.

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Although there were hundreds of attacks in the region on Wednesday, this is just a drop in the ocean compared to the annual attacks in the United States.

In 2023, global technology company Vaisala reported that around 242,101,157 lightning strikes were sighted across the country.

The highest concentrations of strikes occurred on the Gulf Coast and in the Sunshine State, where again many of the metropolitan areas with the most strikes were located.

Data compiled by the Insurance Information Institute estimates that lightning strikes cause about one billion dollars in damage each year.

Fortunately, the number of deaths caused by these natural forces has decreased significantly in recent years; only 13 people died in 2023. Many of the victims are said to have been doing outdoor sports when the thunder struck.

According to the National Lightning Safety Council, only three people have died so far in 2024, from Florida, Colorado and New Jersey.