“Lightning never strikes the same place twice”

The common saying that lightning never strikes the same place twice likely originated from the seemingly unpredictable and rare nature of individual lightning events. For observers, witnessing a lightning strike is an infrequent occurrence, leading to the assumption that it would be incredibly improbable for the same location to be hit again. This perception, coupled with the dramatic and powerful spectacle of a lightning strike, helped embed the phrase into popular language, often used metaphorically to suggest that misfortune or an unusual event won't recur.

However, scientific evidence overwhelmingly busts this myth. Lightning frequently strikes the same place repeatedly, especially targeting tall, isolated, and conductive structures. Iconic examples include the Empire State Building in New York City, which is struck by lightning an average of 20 to 25 times annually, and sometimes even hundreds of times in a year. Similarly, the CN Tower in Toronto experiences approximately 75 lightning strikes each year. This occurs because lightning, as an electrical discharge, seeks the path of least resistance between a cloud and the ground. Tall structures provide the most direct and easiest route for this electrical current.

People continue to believe the myth because their personal observations often align with the idea of infrequent strikes. If lightning hits a lone tree, it's unlikely a person would witness it striking that exact tree again moments later, reinforcing the notion of avoidance. However, this overlooks the broader meteorological patterns and the fundamental physics of electrical discharge. The phrase has become such a deeply ingrained idiom for unlikely events that its literal interpretation persists, despite clear scientific evidence to the contrary.