It just takes a few factors to bring someone's chances way down. For example:
- Someone who is indoors for the most lightning-active hours can easily bring their chance of seeing lightning way down [0]
- If you live in a dead zone, you can see 2+ orders of magnitude less lightning per year [0 and 1]
- People vary a lot in how much time they spend outdoors. Some people spend a half an hour outdoors each day, some spend five; there's another order of magnitude.
- If you live in a city or a valley, you often have a far more limited view as opposed to someone on a hill or flat land. If you live on the lower floors of an apartment building in a city, for example, you may only see the rest of your block, versus others that can see several square miles.
Just those four factors together and you've got a plausible several order of magnitude difference in how much lightning people see. I think it's totally possible there's a good chunk of the population that's never seen it.
- Someone who is indoors for the most lightning-active hours can easily bring their chance of seeing lightning way down [0]
- If you live in a dead zone, you can see 2+ orders of magnitude less lightning per year [0 and 1]
- People vary a lot in how much time they spend outdoors. Some people spend a half an hour outdoors each day, some spend five; there's another order of magnitude.
- If you live in a city or a valley, you often have a far more limited view as opposed to someone on a hill or flat land. If you live on the lower floors of an apartment building in a city, for example, you may only see the rest of your block, versus others that can see several square miles.
Just those four factors together and you've got a plausible several order of magnitude difference in how much lightning people see. I think it's totally possible there's a good chunk of the population that's never seen it.
[0] https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/4967/are-li...
[1] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/85600/global-lightn... (also referenced in gp)