Interesting lightning facts:
Average Lightning Stroke is 6 miles long.
The Temperature of lightning's return stroke can reach 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The surface of the sun is not even that hot! (around 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit).
Average Thunderstorm is 6-10 miles wide.
Average Thunderstorm travels at a rate of 25 miles per hour.
Once the leading edge of a thunderstorm approaches to within 10 miles, you are at immediate risk due to the possibility of lightning strokes coming from overhanging anvil cloud. Because of this, many lightning deaths and injuries occur with clear skies directly overhead.
On average, thunder can only be heard over a distance of 3-4 miles, depending on humidity, terrain and other factors.
Approximately 100,000 thunderstorms occur in the United States each year. Approximately 10% of all thunderstorms are severe enough to produce high winds, flash floods, and tornadoes.
Thunderstorms cause an average of 200 deaths and 700 injuries in the United States each year.

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Here's what NOAA(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has to say about lightning safety:

Stay indoors, and don't venture outside, unless absolutely necessary
Stay away from open doors and windows, fireplaces, radiators, stoves, metal pipes, sinks, and plug-in electrical appliances
Don't use plug-in electrical equipment like hair driers, electric toothbrushes, or electric razors during the storm
Don't use the telephone during the storm. Lightning may strike telephone lines outside
Don't take laundry off the clothesline
Don't work on fences, telephone or power lines, pipelines, or structural steel fabrication
Don't use metal objects like fishing rods and golf clubs. Golfers wearing cleated shoes are particularly good lightning rods
Don't handle flammable materials in open containers
Stop tractor work, especially when the tractor is pulling metal equipment, and dismount. Tractors and other implements in metallic contact with the ground are often struck by lightning
Get out of the water and off small boats
Stay in your automobile if you are traveling. Automobiles offer excellent lightning protection
Seek shelter in buildings. If no buildings are available, your best protection is a cave, ditch, canyon, or under head-high clumps of trees in open forest glades
When there is no shelter, avoid the highest object in the area. If only isolated trees are nearby, your best protection is to crouch in the open, keeping twice as far away from isolated trees as the trees are high
Avoid hilltops, open spaces, wire fences, metal clotheslines, exposed sheds, and any electrically conductive elevated objects
When you feel the electrical charge -- if your hair stands on end or your skin tingles -- lightning may be about to strike you. Drop to the ground immediately

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For more safety information, check out these:
Sabrina's Lightning safety - very well done! Writen by a kid, for kids.
National Weather Service - lightning safety, and first aid for strike victims.
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency)'s Lightning and Thunderstorm page - and how you can help out before, during, and after weather emergencies.

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Map of US area lightning strikes

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Lightning is still a largely unkown phenomenon, but here's some of what we do know:
Click HERE for an informative FAQ on lightning.
LIGHTNING...NATURE'S FIREWORKS - a short introduction to what lightning is, plus, debunking lightning myths.
Here's some mysterious lightning related phenomena
Ball lightning links
Ball lightning experiences
Red Sprites

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Lightning photography is very difficult to pull off well, but the results can be incredible.
Check out Cori Prazen's page for some beautiful examples.
Harald Eden has a site packed with pics.
Bruce Haynie is a storm chaser in my area. His photographs span all sorts of weather phenomena.
Michael Bath has some good pictures, plus a great links section.
And if you think you want to try it yourself, see what Chuck Doswell has to say on the subject.

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