Kevin Beyerle, age 8, of Huntsville, Ala.., for his question:

Is there any place where there are no thunderstorms?

If you want to run away from thunderstorms, you must flee to the frosty polar regions. Even there, a thunderstorm might flash and crash over your igloo. It might come this year, next year or the year after. There is no place on land or sea where thunderstorms cannot happen. They are most unlikely in polar regions, but even these wintery climates get a thunderstorm once in a while.

A thunderstorm covers but a few miles, and the world is very wide. Right now, perhaps 1800 of them are flashing and crashing in faraway places. Most thunderstorms visit the hot and rainy tropics. The Steamy jungles of Java expect 200 thunderstorms every year, While Alabama may get 60 or 70. Thunder storms can visit any place on land or sea    but they are not likely to visit the North and South poles very often.