Watch: Lightning strikes New York City skyscraper during Wednesday’s round of storms

NEW YORK CITY – A powerful line of storms rolled through the Tri-State area on Wednesday evening, producing Mother Nature’s version of a light show with plenty of lightning illuminating the sky.

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

Lightning striking tall buildings is quite common, and due to substantial lightning protection systems, such as rods and grounding devices, impacts are usually not felt inside these structures.

One World Trade Center stands at 1,776 feet high, while the nearby Empire State Building is around 1,250 feet tall. 

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has previously stated that One WTC attracts more lightning than the nearby area simply because of its height. 

Estimates for how many times One WTC is struck annually were not immediately available, but operators of the 102-story Empire State Building said their skyscraper is hit around 25 times per year.

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In addition to the lightning, winds knocked down trees and power lines across the region, leading to at least a quarter of a million outages.

Data from PowerOutage.us showed Pennsylvania was home to the hardest hit communities, with New Jersey and New York also reporting significant outages.

The severe storms produced wind gusts upwards of hurricane force, with a 77-mph gust reported at Connecticut’s Bradley International Airport.

The impacts of the hazardous weather caused travel delays at many of the major airports, including Washington Reagan, where some passengers reported waiting in planes for more than an hour and a half before the storms cleared.

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Even though hundreds of strikes occurred in the region on Wednesday, it is a drop in the bucket compared to what the U.S. sees annually. 

In 2023, Vaisala, a global technology company, reported some 242,101,157 lightning bolts were spotted across the country.

The highest concentrations were along the Gulf Coast and in the Sunshine State, which once again was home to many of the top metros for strikes.

Data compiled by the Insurance Information Institute estimates that lightning strikes cause approximately $1 billion in damage annually.

Fortunately, deaths attributed to these acts of Mother Nature have significantly decreased in recent years, with only 13 people killed in 2023. Many of the victims were reported to have been participating in outdoor sports when thunder roared.

So far in 2024, the National Lightning Safety Council reports only three people have been killed, with deaths reported in Florida, Colorado and New Jersey.