While it remains highly unlikely you'll ever be struck by lightning in your lifetime, it actually happens to people more often than you may think.
There also are a few other weather-related issues that are even less likely to take your life than a lightning strike, according to a recent study.
On the heels of recent news that a lightning strike in Venice Beach, Ca., killed one person and injured seven others comes a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that points out there are a few other weather-related issues that are less deadly than a lightning strike.
The CDC report reveals that between 2006 and 2010, 182 Americans died as a result of being struck by lightning and those strikes contributed to the deaths of five other people.
Surprisingly, significantly fewer people in the U.S. died from flooding during that time period, as floods caused 93 deaths during that five-year period.
When looking at all weather-related events and the number of casualties they have caused during the five-year period the CDC study covers, 10,649 people have passed as result of these natural occurrences, an average of over 2,000 per year.
Nearly one-third of the deaths were attributed to excessive natural heat, and almost two-thirds were attributed to excessive natural cold, the report stated.
"Extreme weather (heat, cold, storms, floods, and lightning) has long been associated with excess morbidity and mortality. Studies of weather-related morbidity and mortality have sought both to quantify the magnitude of the problem and to identify vulnerable subpopulations so that appropriate public health interventions can be designed and implemented," the CDC stated in explaining the goal of the report.
Extreme heat was responsible for some 3,340 deaths in the U.S. from 2006 to 2010, half as many as cold weather-related deaths. Of the heat-related deaths, the report adds that nearly all of these people died from a combination of "exposure to excessive natural heat" and "heat stroke or sun stroke."
However, the CDC data claims that extreme heat was more dangerous than cold when it comes to young children as the death rate for infants was 42 per 10 million, compared with a cold-related death rate of 10 per 10 million for the same age group.
