Interesting Facts About Florida Shuttle Launches

UPDATE: Interestingly, Gizmodo is rebroadcasting (with no sourcing) the pictures noted below, and inferring that the photos were taken yesterday, not Saturday.

I don't pay much attention to Astronomy these days (we've got Lisa (PREMIUM | PRO) covering that stuff) but as a non-astronomy fan I ran across a couple of interesting weather-related facts that I did not know about the Shuttle launches in Florida. The media has had some attention on the latest Endeavour launch, which was most recently scrubbed over the weekend when thunderstorms were nearby (see actual photos of lightning hitting the launch pad here). They are trying again tonight (for the 5th time) - we have a Weather Headline (PREMIUM | PRO) and Breaking Weather News Page (PREMIUM | PRO) showing the forecast for that.

First, the decision to launch doesn't depend only on the weather at Cape Canaveral,Florida - it also has to be good at other landing sites in case the mission has to be aborted after takeoff. I hadn't thought about that, but I guess it makes sense (thanks Charlie B. for the clarification). You can read a blog entry here about a launch being cancelled in Florida because of bad weather in Spain.

2. Given that Florida is the lightning capital of North America, you might ask why NASA's primary operations are there? Although you can find varying theories on "answer" sites, Space.com interviewed a NASA spokesman who said says it's because the low latitude allows for them to use less fuel than other locations.