Which states had the most lightning yesterday?

On Saturday, August 15, 2026, Texas led returned state rows with 43,571 detected optical flashes.

Each row is that state’s local midnight-to-midnight calendar day. NOAA GOES East/West GLM reports optical total-lightning flash counts, not confirmed ground impacts. State bounding boxes are rectangular and can overlap, so rows cannot form a unique national total; a missing row is not proof of zero.

Returned state rows

RankStateDetected optical flashesRelative activity
1Texas yesterday43,571
2Illinois40,603
3Missouri40,173
4North Carolina37,837
5South Carolina32,953
6Iowa31,028
7Idaho yesterday24,333
8Colorado yesterday23,507
9Florida yesterday23,009
10Alabama22,767
11Kentucky22,029
12Nebraska20,823
13Georgia yesterday17,943
14Wyoming17,272
15Kansas16,897
16Virginia15,548
17Montana yesterday14,630
18New Mexico yesterday12,242
19Ohio8,537
20California7,458
21Tennessee7,123
22Oklahoma6,362
23Oregon yesterday6,228
24Indiana5,646
25Nevada4,016
26West Virginia2,962
27Mississippi2,856
28South Dakota2,107
29Washington yesterday1,818
30Arizona yesterday1,742
31Minnesota1,402
32Utah643
33Louisiana323
34Hawaii133
35Michigan92
36Wisconsin35
37Alaska2

Closed-day pages by state

These states keep their own yesterday page, whether or not they returned a row above.

What about right now?

These are closed local-day rows, not a live national tracker. Use the last-24-hour lightning map for recent activity, a state or city map for local context, and closest recent flash for distance context.

Counts are based on NOAA GOES East/West GLM observations. Read the methodology for source boundaries, cadence, and map limits.

Get lightning alerts on your phone.

App Store Google Play

Free 50 state maps Live alerts