The north-east of France experienced a stormy day on Friday, in line with forecasts.
Lightning also struck other areas of the territory, but in smaller proportions.
According to data from Météorage, a Météo France service, relayed by The Weather Channel, a total of 6,883 impacts were recorded.
This makes it the “stormiest day since the start of this year”.
To put the 6,883 impacts identified into perspective, two pieces of data can be taken into account.
According to Météorage, this is a number that is close to the average total… over the entire month.
Furthermore, March 2023 was particularly struck by lightning with 18,400 impacts in total, which was a record since records began in 1989. In one day Friday, a third of this historic total was therefore reached.
A normally calm month in terms of number of lightning strikes
Other data shows significantly more lightning, around 17,000.
The difference comes from the way they are counted.
There are lightning strikes that occur within the same cloud, others that go from one cloud to another, and those that have contact with the ground.
The vast majority of these go from a cloud towards the earth, but, in certain cases, they are ascending and go from the ground towards a cloud.
Taking everything into account, Meteorage results in just over 20,500 “electric shocks”.
Regardless of the methodology used, Friday's total is remarkable.
March is not at all statistically the most lightning month of the year.
On average, it belongs to the calmest in this matter, even if variations exist from one year to the next.
It rather corresponds to a gradual resumption of electrical activity.
The shift in results depending on the types of lightning taken into account also appears in comparison with the Keraunos data.
In March 2023, the French observatory for tornadoes and violent storms recorded 88,093 lightning strikes, almost five times more than the only impacts on the ground recorded by Météorage.
The next storms in France should occur on Monday, at the end of the day, in the South-West.