Lightning Strike Near KY Mine Blast
Some people have asked if lightning could be to blame in Saturday morning's deadly mine blast in Holmes Mill, Kentucky. I posted a national lightning map on Saturday afternoon, but it was impossible to tell how close the strikes were to the location of the mine.
The latest official news on this topic says, and I quote:
I have now obtained a lightning strike map for the time and area where the mine blast occurred (in Holmes Mill, KY, indicated by the star on the map). This map was produced by AccuWeather's partner (and new lightning network) USPLN and WeatherForensics.com.
From this map, the nearest lightning strike near that time was nearly 10 miles to the north of the center of Holmes Mill, Kentucky. HOWEVER, I was not able to find the location of the actual mine (Darby Mine No. 1, if you can specify a lat/lon, let me know). If the mine is within a mile or two of the zipcode centroid for this tiny town, one would assume that lightning was not a factor, because these charts are accurate to within hundreds of meters.
If you look at the Google satellite maps for Holmes Mill, I believe mines are apparent in a gray color. Remember, the strike was northeast of Cumberland and Holmes Mills is in the center of the map. There are a lot of mines, so I don't know where to start. I thought I saw a map on-air showing the outside view of the mine as a half-circle shape, but I'm not sure. If you can help me out, let me know.
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