Police in Waukesha, west of Milwaukee, said the “area was experiencing heavy rainfall accompanied by significant thunder and lightning” when someone reported seeing the man on the ground Wednesday evening.
“Preliminary information indicates the individual was struck by lightning while walking through the parking lot during the storm,” police said.
A weather pattern combining very moist air with a strong jet stream has been stretching from as far south as central Texas into the Midwest and east across the Great Lakes. From Monday through Wednesday, the National Weather Service has received more than 1,100 reports of large hail, winds above 60 mph (96 kph) and tornadoes as part of the storm system, said Bill Bunting, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Storm Prediction Center.
Teams were out Thursday surveying damage to determine the exact number of tornadoes, Bunting said.
“There's been a tremendous amount of lightning with these storms over the last few days,” said Mark Gehring, a meteorologist with the weather service in Milwaukee.
“We've had the temperature and humidity of summer and it's lasting an entire week — in mid-April,” he added. “In addition to a very stormy pattern, nearly every day we're having heavy rain. We've had tornadoes nearly every day, very large hail.”
Five tornadoes have been confirmed across southern and parts of central Wisconsin, according to Gehring.
“But there are more out there. We are going out to do storm surveys,” he said Thursday, adding that storms expected Friday evening could be severe.
In addition to lightning, hail and tornadoes, the storms have brought rain — lots of it, with scores of flood warnings and flood watches issued by the weather service over multiple states.
