Lightning report: October 2026
Satellite-detected lightning around 418 monitored cities in the Americas · Published 2026-11-02
October belonged to South America. Asunción, Paraguay recorded 125,134 lightning flashes within 50 miles, almost a third of them (37,325) on a single day, October 8. Ciudad del Este, also in Paraguay, came second with 87,002, and Córdoba and Rosario in Argentina each passed 22,000 flashes on October 7 alone, as spring storms built across the region.
Guayaquil, Ecuador placed third with 81,705 flashes. Its busiest day, October 26 with 24,817 flashes, was the storm that flooded dozens of neighborhoods and closed road tunnels across the city.
In the US, the summer storm season was over and the totals were far lower. El Paso, Texas led with 27,086 flashes, more than a third of them (10,122) on October 24, when severe thunderstorms with hail hit El Paso and Las Cruces. Midland, Texas (24,954) and Des Moines, Iowa (22,259) came next.
Most lightning: US cities
Lightning flashes detected within 50 miles of each city during October 2026, among the cities StrikeCast monitors.
| # | City | Flashes within 50 mi | Busiest day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | El Paso, TX | 27,086 | Oct 24 · 10,122 |
| 2 | Midland, TX | 24,954 | Oct 14 · 14,837 |
| 3 | Des Moines, IA | 22,259 | Oct 9 · 14,733 |
| 4 | Las Cruces, NM | 19,905 | Oct 24 · 6,370 |
| 5 | McAllen, TX | 19,736 | Oct 1 · 14,375 |
| 6 | Roswell, NM | 19,137 | Oct 25 · 7,232 |
| 7 | Flagstaff, AZ | 18,692 | Oct 22 · 8,863 |
| 8 | Rio Rancho, NM | 16,969 | Oct 23 · 4,771 |
| 9 | Lawrence, KS | 16,579 | Oct 14 · 8,905 |
| 10 | Boca Raton, FL | 16,255 | Oct 17 · 5,464 |
| 11 | Topeka, KS | 15,998 | Oct 14 · 6,619 |
| 12 | West Palm Beach, FL | 15,922 | Oct 17 · 4,229 |
| 13 | Wichita, KS | 15,374 | Oct 14 · 10,091 |
| 14 | Lubbock, TX | 15,139 | Oct 14 · 9,697 |
| 15 | Jacksonville, FL | 14,844 | Oct 10 · 10,872 |
Most lightning: Latin America and Canada
| # | City | Flashes within 50 mi | Busiest day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asunción, Paraguay | 125,134 | Oct 8 · 37,325 |
| 2 | Ciudad del Este, Paraguay | 87,002 | Oct 12 · 15,221 |
| 3 | Guayaquil, Ecuador | 81,705 | Oct 26 · 24,817 |
| 4 | Manaus, Brazil | 75,225 | Oct 22 · 8,493 |
| 5 | Maracaibo, Venezuela | 68,419 | Oct 21 · 7,213 |
| 6 | Cali, Colombia | 57,402 | Oct 5 · 5,158 |
| 7 | Medellín, Colombia | 50,350 | Oct 1 · 5,920 |
| 8 | Barranquilla, Colombia | 48,240 | Oct 12 · 10,602 |
| 9 | Córdoba, Argentina | 47,135 | Oct 7 · 22,795 |
| 10 | Santa Cruz, Bolivia | 46,680 | Oct 10 · 22,635 |
| 11 | Guatemala City, Guatemala | 45,347 | Oct 1 · 6,991 |
| 12 | Bogotá, Colombia | 44,946 | Oct 1 · 5,958 |
| 13 | Cartagena, Colombia | 43,016 | Oct 18 · 5,341 |
| 14 | Valencia, Venezuela | 42,733 | Oct 12 · 8,020 |
| 15 | Goiânia, Brazil | 42,168 | Oct 23 · 11,094 |
Busiest single days
- Oct 8: 37,325 flashes within 50 miles of Asunción, Paraguay
- Oct 26: 24,817 flashes within 50 miles of Guayaquil, Ecuador
- Oct 7: 22,969 flashes within 50 miles of Rosario, Argentina
- Oct 7: 22,795 flashes within 50 miles of Córdoba, Argentina
- Oct 10: 22,635 flashes within 50 miles of Santa Cruz, Bolivia
How these numbers are made
What is counted. Each number is the count of lightning flashes detected by NOAA’s GOES Geostationary Lightning Mapper within 50 miles of the city center during the month (UTC). The satellite records total lightning, in-cloud and cloud-to-ground, and locates each flash to within about 5–9 miles (8–14 km). A flash is any detected discharge, including the many that stay inside the cloud and never reach the ground.
Overlapping circles. Nearby cities share part of their 50-mile circles, so one flash can count for several cities. Add up rows and you count those flashes more than once.
Coverage. GOES-19 was watching for 742 of the month’s 744 hours (data since 2026-08-18). GOES-18 was watching for 650 of the month’s 744 hours (data since 2026-09-04). An hour no satellite watched is counted as missing and left out of the total. Rankings include only cities watched for at least 95% of the month; 4 cities fell short and appear only in the CSV.
Which cities. The 418 cities StrikeCast tracks across the US and Latin America. Places at the edge of the satellites’ view are left out (4 this month), so the rankings cover monitored cities only.
Download, check and cite
- PDF report for October 2026 (189 KB): the findings, top cities and method, ready to print or attach.
- CSV data for October 2026: every monitored city with its name, country, coordinates, flash count, busiest day and missing hours. Opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.
This page is the official version. Copies elsewhere may be out of date or altered. To check a downloaded file, compare its SHA-256 fingerprint with the one below (Mac: shasum -a 256 file, Windows: certutil -hashfile file SHA256). Changing a single digit changes the fingerprint. It confirms a file is unchanged only when checked against this page, and it says nothing about screenshots or printouts.
- PDF:
- b8841cf20c29eb5ac08d4b9371fd2aba69898e37683b145b11644ab50d5afdfb
- CSV:
- d140ffa7c7f6df066ce0ca6bde7ab5e441eabb91e6d904031bad540a6dec2329
The figures and the files are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: republish, chart or quote them, including commercially, with credit and a link to this page. If you change the figures, say so.
Suggested citation: StrikeCast, “Lightning report: October 2026”, analysis of NOAA GOES-GLM satellite data, https://strikecast.app/lightning/report/2026-10
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