If your weekend plans were rudely interrupted by crashing booms and flashing windows, you weren’t imagining things. A massive storm rolled through Southeast Texas over the weekend, putting on an electric light show – much to the chagrin of residents.
According to data monitored by regional CenterPoint utility sensors, a staggering 56,000 lightning strikes were recorded in the Greater Houston area over a single 16-hour window on Saturday alone.
The lightning show began around 3 AM on Saturday and kept firing all the way through 7 PM. Local meteorologists noted that while large thunderstorm clusters are a staple of Texas Gulf Coast weather, it has been quite a while since Space City has seen a single storm complex bring this level of concentrated, continuous cloud-to-ground lightning activity.
The sheer volume of strikes had a direct impact on the grid, serving as a primary factor in knocking out power to more than 190,000 CenterPoint and Entergy residents across the metro area on Saturday. The hardest hit areas in Houston include North and Northwest Harris County and Montgomery County.
Thankfully, crews were able to successfully restore power to over 168,000 residents. As of Sunday morning, outages were dwindled down to around 700 homes.
The city regularly ranks among the top 10 most lightning-heavy counties in the country. Though Houston has been referred to as the lightning capital of Texas, the lightning capital of the United States is actually an East Texas town by the name of Teague.
While the pinnacle of lightning activity has passed, Houston isn’t out of the woods yet weather-wise this week. Not to rain on your parade, but forecasters predict continued thunderstorms scattered throughout the week mixed with cloudy conditions.
