NASA Chat: Striking Up a Conversation About Lightning

June is Lightning Safety Awareness Month. Lightning is the number two killer of severe weather. Flooding is number one. A lot of people think if it is sunny or maybe just a few clouds around and you hear thunder, it is okay to stay outside until you actually see the lightning. That is not true. If you hear thunder when you are outside, that means that lightning is close enough to strike you!

On Thursday, June 23, from 7-8 p.m. EDT, Dr. Richard Blakeslee, atmospheric research scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will answer your questions about lightning safety, the global distribution and frequency of lightning occurrence as well as some of its physical characteristic.

The relationship of lightning to severe storms and weather (e.g., lightning rate changes may serve as a "pre-cursor" or advanced indicator to later severe weather at the ground such as tornadoes), and other lightning research topics such as lightning-hurricane relationships and terrestrial gamma ray burst.

NASA UPDATES: NASA launches nation's newest weather satellite

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -- NASA has recently launched the nation's newest weather satellite.
An unmanned rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida Thursday evening, carrying a $500 million GOES satellite.

The spacecraft will undergo testing for the next 6 months and will finally be an orbiting spare in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) network. The satellites are operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

They provide very important images of hurricanes and other storms that threaten the U.S.

Meteorologists say they couldn't track storms or else issue the proper warnings without them.

The new satellite is GOES-P and it will become GOES-15 once it reaches the proper orbit.