TEXAS – When thunder roars, head indoors.  That is the safety message Spectrum News' "Weather on the 1s" meteorologists say you should follow as there really is no safe place to be outdoors during a thunderstorm.

The U.S. is the lightning capital of the world.  Here in Texas, 3.3 million cloud-to-ground flashes were observed last year, the most of any state.

Sadly, the Lone Star State had two lightning deaths in 2017 and there's already been at least one reported this year.

Lightning expert Ronald Holley is a consultant with Vaisala, a company in Phoenix that runs the National Lightning Decetion Network, or NLDN, the only network capable of both detecting cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning while, at the same time, correctly differentiating between the two.

In the above video, Holley talks with our Chief Meteorologist Burton Fitzsimmons about what we know and what we don't know about this powerful natural phenomenon.

Holley discusses many interesting facts, including:  the temperature of lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun; the longest duration for lightning was recorded at 7.7 seconds; lightning can travel as far as 200 miles from the parent storm; and, yes, lightning can strike the same place twice.