Does lightning strike the same place twice?

01

How often does lightning hit the same spot?[1]

Often enough that engineers design around it. The National Weather Service notes the Empire State Building is struck about 23 times a year. Tall towers, masts and mountain peaks take repeated hits every storm season, sometimes several in one storm.

Lightning does not choose targets in any meaningful sense. A downward leader approaching the ground connects to whichever upward streamer reaches it first, and streamers rise most readily from tall, sharp, well-grounded objects. Nothing about that changes because the object was hit an hour ago.

Communication towers make this obvious. A tall mast on a ridge can log dozens of strikes a year, which is why broadcast sites are built with heavy grounding, surge protection on every feed line and equipment that expects to be hit rather than hoping not to be.

02

Where did the myth come from?[1]

It is a figure of speech about luck that got mistaken for a physical claim. The phrase describes improbable events not repeating, and lightning was the metaphor rather than the subject. The physics never supported it.

The myth survives partly because it is comforting to a specific group: people whose house has already been hit. The intuition that you have used up your bad luck runs the wrong way. A house that was struck once probably has the height and position that made it a target, and it still has them.

03

What makes something a repeat target?[1][2]

Height above the surroundings, a pointed or edged top, isolation from other tall objects, and a good connection to ground. A tall building surrounded by taller ones is far less exposed than a modest mast standing alone on a hilltop.

Terrain does this without any structure involved. Exposed summits and ridge ends accumulate strike counts that show up clearly in detection network archives, which is why long-run strike-density maps trace topography so closely.

Height

The dominant factor. Closer to the cloud means a shorter final gap to bridge

Pointed shape

Sharp geometry concentrates the electric field and launches streamers more readily

Isolation

A lone object competes with nothing else nearby

Grounding

A well-earthed conductor supports a stronger upward streamer than an insulated one

04

Can a person be struck more than once?[3]

Yes, and the documented cases are usually people whose work or habits put them outdoors during storms repeatedly. Park ranger Roy Sullivan is the best known example, with seven strikes recorded over his career. Exposure drives the count, not any property of the person.

Repeat strikes on individuals are a selection effect rather than a mystery. Someone who spends decades working outdoors in a lightning-prone region accumulates far more exposure hours than the population average that produces the roughly 1 in 1,222,000 annual odds.