I heard in the past that central Florida is the lightning capital of the world. I just read that it is actually in Africa. There is a area that stretches from Tampa to the Space Coast that has more lightning strikes than any where in the US. Although Ocala is a little north of that area we get serious thunderstorms and lightning is a real problem.

My personal experience with lightning was 3 or 4 years ago. A huge blast shook my house so much so that I went outside in the pouring rain to look for a hole in the roof. Seeing nothing I went back inside. A short while later I went to the garage and saw the clock for the irrigation system in the middle of the floor. A bolt of lightning hit the ground in the back yard. It got into the wires that lead from the sprinkler clock to the control valves. The electricity followed the wires inside and blew the clock off the wall. Then it traveled into the house wiring and blew up my desktop computer in my home office on the opposite side of the wall. I learned my lesson and now have every electronic device in my house plugged into a high quality surge protector. I also have a surge protector on the electric meter to protect the major appliances.