Interesting links, thanks! I've lived in several high lightning risk areas of the US. A large component of strike frequency has got to be linked to the frequency of storms that generate lightning in the first place, right? If the prevailing weather pattern of an area doesn't generate the right type of storm, the risk of lightning will be low. Then there's how well the mineral makeup of the earth in that region holds or releases an electrical charge too (affecting whether charges generated by a storm ever do travel between storm and the earth).
Some of my previous co-workers would probably claim that wherever I was, lightning followed. My houses have been struck (relatively glancing blows), bolts have hit trees or power poles as I drove past them, and I've watched them hit trees near where I happened to be standing or walking.
Lightning cooked the electrical panel of an office I managed too. A storm was approaching. I was on the phone. So, I tried to get the long-winded caller to hang up before it arrived. Without success. When the bolt struck, a coworker standing across the room recalls seeing some sort of discharge in the air and I felt a blow that knocked the handset out of my hand. It fried our phones and computers.
Some months later my darling colleagues commemorated the event by describing me as a very illuminating employee and handing me a butane-torched phone handset at my farewell roast!
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