Death came literally out of the blue on 21 June when landscape gardener David Canales, 51, of West Miami-Dade, Florida, was fatally hit by dry lightning while working in Pinecrest. "Most lightning will come from the base of a thunderstorm, inside the rainshaft area," said meteorologist Dan Dixon. "But occasionally what we call a bolt from the blue comes out of a thunderstorm still several miles away." Most lightning bolts carry a negative charge, but fair-weather bolts have a positive charge, carry as much as 10 times the current, are hotter and last longer. They normally travel horizontally away from the storm and reach further than typical lightning, then curve to the ground.

Miami Herald, 22 June 2007