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Comment by spacedcowboy | Hacker News Reader

A corollary of everywhere in the UK being North of anywhere in the USA (apart from the cheat-code that is Alaska). The UK is just too damn North, and therefore too damn cold (regardless of the Gulf Stream effect) for the heat-exchange that powers big thunderstorms

Except when it's not ,of course. I recall the Great Storm of 1987 [1], being at Imperial College at the time, and seeing the trees fall and hit some of the campus halls. Fortunately, Linstead Hall (there was an immense tree outside my window) wasn't one of them.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_storm_of_1987

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I knew the US was further south than one assumes, but wow. In fact, even all of Luxembourg is further north than all of the continental US!

There was not one thunderstorm in the years I lived in the PNW or the years I lived in Austin TX, it is more complicated than how far north you are. There was a very good thunderstorm during my vacation in Alaska a few years ago but I have no idea how common they are there, no one remarked on it being a rare occurrence, just that it was a good storm.

Very rare in the PNW (or at least Washington) and Alaska. Thankful for that as the chances of a fire starting from them seems high. Last summer we only had one lighting "storm" which had a total two lighting strikes and one of them started a fire.

I spend just one week per year in Austin and I've seen several there so I always assumed they were common. It's either me or my timing!

> Austin TX

Strange, in Dallas, where I grew up, we had severe thunderstorms every spring.

I suppose Austin is further south, on a plateau and hillier, and not really a part of the Great Plains?

I don't exactly have solid data on it, but from what I've seen the big thunderstorms of Dallas don't often get further South than like Waco. Even Dallas seems to miss a lot of the big storm fronts or only get hit by the tail of them.

It's more about the oceanic climate. According to the map in the article, continental areas at similar latitudes see more thunderstorms than the UK. I guess that's mostly because temperate thunderstorms often happen near the front between cold and warm air masses, and continental climates give you more opportunities for that.

I remember that storm too. I slept through the entire thing, despite all the damage done outside (greenhouses moved houses away, the roof of our school ripped off, trees down, and builders frantically knocking down other trees pretending that it was storm damage).

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