Shocking: How Many Times North Dakota’s Been Struck By Lightning In 2023

Every year, the number of lightning strikes in each state is totaled up by Vaisala Xweather.

You might find it interesting how many times North Dakota was struck by lightning in 2023. As it turns out, we had quite a few --enough to rank North Dakota in the top 25 on the list of states with the most lightning strikes.

Before I tell you how many lightning strikes North Dakota got last year, you might be interested to know how many lightning strikes occurred across the US.

According to the source, the US got zapped a whopping 2,102,170,206 times last year. Holy cow, billions of times!

The source looks at both in-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning to come up with the total number.

Top 10 States

The source says that some states get more lightning than others. Here's the top ten:

1. Texas
2. Florida
3. Oklahoma
4. Mississippi
5. Arkansas
6. Louisiana
7. Alabama
8. Georgia
9. Missouri
10. Kansas

Curious which state had the fewest lightning strikes last year? -- It's the District of Colombia, followed by Rhode Island and Hawaii.

I don't know about you, but I assumed Hawaii would be one of the top states with it being a tropical climate, more prone to storms.

North Dakota

So, where does North Dakota rank overall? We come in at number 23, with 2,776,637 total strikes in 2023.

I don't know about you, but I find that pretty surprising; we didn't have that many storms this summer.

The source also put together a map, showing the frequency of lightning strikes across the country. Take a look at some of the hotspots.