People killed by lightning

As Americans have drunk more wine per capita, fewer of them have been killed by lightning, a correlation that suggests either that wine provides some kind of electromagnetic protection or that the same cultural shift toward indoor sophistication that drives wine consumption also keeps people out of thunderstorms. The coefficient is -0.882 across seventeen years, during which the nation got more oenological and less electrocuted. One imagines a sommelier holding up a glass during a storm and feeling invincible. They should not.

Wine consumption hit a record in 2020 as lockdowns drove at-home drinking through the roof, while lightning fatalities dropped because fewer people were out golfing, hiking, or fishing to get struck. The correlation measures the same country choosing the sofa over the storm.

Seventeen years of more wine and less lightning death is a correlation that practically writes its own wine label: Château Survivant, notes of indoor leisure and statistical coincidence. The wine pours, the lightning strikes elsewhere, and the correlation between them is simply the sound of a nation retreating indoors. The tannins are excellent. The weather is someone else's problem.