Stay away from tall isolated objects during a lightning storm.  You can be hurt or killed just by being close to a lightning strike even if you're not struck directly.

An automobile with a metal roof and body provides good protection from lightning.  The lightning current will travel through the metal and around the passengers inside.  The rubber tires really don't play any role at all.  The people in Florida that were triggering lightning with rockets (shown on a video last week) were inside a metal trailer and were perfectly safe.  All of the connections made to equipment outside the trailer were done using fiber optics, there were no metal wires entering or leaving the trailer. 

You shouldn't use a corded phone or electrical appliances during a lightning storm because lightning currents can follow wires into your home.  Cordless phones and cell phones are safe.  It is also a good idea to stay away from plumbing as much as possible (don't take a shower during a lightning storm, for example).  Vent pipes that are connected to the plumbing go up to the roof of the house which puts them in a perfect location to be struck.

 

	Middle latitude storms	Similarities	Hurricanes
1	form at middle latitudes  (30 to 60 degrees latitude)	both types of storms have low pressure centers (cyclone refers to winds blowing around low pressure)	from in the subtropics (5 to 20 degrees latitude)
2	can form over land or water	upper level divergence is what causes both types of storms to intensify	only form over warm ocean water
3	bigger (might cover half the US)		not as big (might fill the Gulf of Mexico)
4	fronts separate warm and cold air masses		just warm moist air
5	at middle latitude the prevailing westerly winds move these storms from west to east		the trade winds move hurricanes from east to west
6	strongest in the winter into early spring		strongest in late summer into fall (when the ocean is warmest)
7	produce rain, snow, sleet, graupel		mostly just rain (lots of rain)
8	usually no name		get names

Hurricanes receive names (when they reach tropical storm strength).  The names now alternate male and female.  The names of particularly strong or deadly hurricanes (such as Katrina) are retired, otherwise the names repeat every 6 years. 

The figure above shows the relative frequency of tropical cyclone development in different parts of the world.  The name hurricane, cyclone, and typhoon all refer to the same type of storm (tropical cyclone is a general name that can be used anywhere).  In most years the ocean off the coast of SE Asia is the world's most active hurricane zone.  Hurricanes are very rare off the east and west coasts of South America.

Hurricanes form between 5 and 20 degrees latitude, over warm ocean water, north and south of the equator.  The warm layer of water must be fairly deep to contain enough energy to fuel a hurricane and so that turbulence and mixing don't bring cold water up to the ocean surface.  The atmosphere must be unstable so that thunderstorms can develop.  Hurricanes will only form when there is very little or no vertical wind shear (changing wind direction or speed with altitude).  Hurricanes don't form at the equator because there is no Coriolis force there (the Coriolis force is what gives hurricanes their spin and it causes hurricanes to spin in opposite directions in the northern and southern hemispheres).

Note that more tropical cyclones form off the west coast of the US than off the east coast.  The west coast hurricanes don't generally get much attention, because they move away from the coast and usually don't present a threat to the US (except occasionally to the state of Hawaii).  The moisture from these storms will sometimes be pulled up into the southwestern US where it can lead to heavy rain and flooding.