Stephen M. Strader, PhD

If Benjamin Franklin had modern climatological data to consult, he may have scheduled his famous kite and key experiment for July of 1753 in Philadelphia, instead of a month sooner. July, after all, is Philadelphia’s most active month for lightning strikes, noted Stephen Strader, PhD, associate professor of Geography and the Environment and severe weather geographer at Villanova University. Lightning has been on Dr. Strader’s mind recently. In Spring 2025, he and a colleague published a study in Weather, Climate, and Society where they developed a metric to comprehensively rank more than 475 “large outdoor gatherings” in the U.S. in terms of greatest lightning risk, weak (EF0+) tornadoes and strong or significant (EF2+) tornadoes. The rankings factored in time of year, frequency of events, attendance and capacity, which was then compared to tornado/lightning climatology data for the venue location. With major outdoor events scheduled throughout the summer in Philadelphia, Dr. Strader recently reanalyzed his data to include gatherings like the FIFA World Cup, MLB All-Star Game and America 250 celebrations in the city. What he found was that many of these gatherings—when compared to other large outdoor gatherings across the country—are among the most likely to experience certain severe weather events. “While it is too soon to predict what the weather will be like for each of these events, the climatology does suggest that if severe inclement weather threatens them, many people could be exposed to deadly hazards such as lightning and tornadoes,” he said. “The key is for venue organizers, first responders and event attendees to be informed, not alarmed.” Preparedness Lessens Impact Every year, thousands of sports games, concerts, fairs, parades and days at amusement parks occur without weather-related safety incidents. But every now and again one does, sometimes with tragic results. In 2011, a spectator at Pocono Raceway was struck and killed by lightning in the parking lot after the race was halted due to weather. One year later, a sudden strong wind from an approaching storm collapsed a grandstand at the Indiana State Fair, causing seven fatalities and dozens of injuries. The objective of Dr. Strader’s research was to find what venues are most likely, comparatively, to experience these extremely rare worst-case scenario exposures. By doing so, he hopes that it will help venues and organizers to understand how they can plan, execute or update their preparedness and protocol, so that their impacts are less deadly when they do occur. “The idea isn’t to scare people,” he said. “Most of these venues and entities know that they're at risk for inclement weather. My hope is that those who do have a plan in place re-evaluate them, and think, based on the climatology, how they can adapt. For those who don’t, the goal is to make them aware of their risk so they can begin to plan. “There's a mental side to this too. Every year that goes by where there's not an issue or incident, people get increasingly relaxed. It’s a reminder to stay vigilant.” Many of the large outdoor gatherings that appear high in the research rankings do have robust protocols and infrastructure. For example, amusement parks score very high for lightning risk because they are open almost every day of the year to huge crowds, and many are located in states that experience frequent severe weather, like Florida and Texas. “But places like Disney World have comprehensive preparedness plans—they have people hired to understand and be aware of these threats,” Dr. Strader said. “Attendees have ample places to seek shelter.” The same is true, to varying extents with sporting venues, especially major professional sports stadiums. Even though gatherings held there may rank higher for these weather events, the chances of a catastrophe are lessened because of preparedness, protocol and infrastructure. Where Dr. Strader is more concerned is with gatherings like parades and fairs, especially when they last for multiple days and/or draw large crowds. “A state fair tends to be more ‘mom and pop’ at times, and they lack permanent infrastructure,” he said. “Vendors set up in temporary structures and a lot of times there are no places for attendees to seek shelter when thunderstorms threaten. You're also dealing with a transient population—people who don't know the area, and don’t know where to go when severe weather hits. “Parades are kind of a free for all in that you can come and go as you please. This is one of the reasons venues take tickets—so they understand their capacity to deal with an emergency. But if you have a place that doesn't do that, it can be tricky.” How Philadelphia’s 2026 Events Rank So, what exactly did Dr. Strader find when factoring in this summer’s events in and near the City of Brotherly Love, and what does it mean? In terms of lightning risk, several events and venues rank in the 80th percentile and greater for potential exposure compared to all other documented U.S. large outdoor gatherings. Citizens Bank Park, the host of the MLB All-Star Game in July, ranks in the 95th percentile. America 250 celebrations on July 4 rank in the 94th percentile, while FIFA World Cup events at Lincoln Financial Field rank 87th in June and 94th in July. For tornado threats to all nationwide events, Citizens Bank Park tops all local functions in July at the 96th percentile. The America 250 celebration ranks in the 95th, FIFA World Cup the 94th and MLB All-Star Game the 78th percentile for tornado exposure in that same month. According to Dr. Strader, lightning is often the bigger concern because it is far less predictable than tornadoes. While events are frequently canceled ahead of a credible tornado threat, they are less likely to be canceled due to the possibility of lightning. “Although lightning [strikes] and tornadoes are not very common in southeastern Pennsylvania, the large number of people gathered for these events sets up a ‘what if’ situation where tens of thousands of individuals could be threatened by severe weather,” he said. “Based on these findings, venue operators and governing bodies should continue to develop risk reduction strategies aimed at improving lightning and tornado safety, especially as lightning and tornado hazard threats evolve over time and across geographic space.” It is not only operators and organizers who should be prepared. Patrons, he says, can also devise and enact their own personal preparedness plan in the event of sudden severe weather. Teaching children simple sayings such as “when thunder roars go indoors” and scoping out potential places for shelter can go a long way in the event of severe weather—especially at come-and-go, transient events like America 250 festivities. “And if you see approaching clouds on July 4, maybe find another way to pay homage to Ben Franklin, and pull down your kite.”

The iPad. Hurricane Sandy. Affordable Care Act. #MeToo. Brexit. Streaming services. Since 2010, there have been so many memorable and historic events that have shifted culture and society into unfamiliar territory around the world. Two Villanova experts have put together thoughts on a few of the decade's top stories that will continue to be relevant for the next ten years—and beyond. Stephen Strader, assistant professor of geography and the environment Over the last decade we have seen the issue of anthropogenic or human-induced climate change shift from something discussed between select, interested scientists to the front page of the news on a daily basis. This dramatic change in the importance and coverage of climate change makes complete sense given six of the last ten years globally have been in the top ten warmest on record. Actually, it's very likely, if not certain, that the last five years will be the hottest globally on record. The odds of that happening naturally are very close to zero. Nowhere have the effects of a changing climate been realized more so than in the western United States, where wildfires have wreaked havoc year after year in the 2010s. States such as California, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Washington all experienced record-breaking wildfires over the last decade. Specifically, the Camp Fire in 2018 became the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, destroying 18,000-plus homes and killing 85 people in the town of Paradise.   Additionally: Hurricanes Dorian, Irma, Harvey, Maria, etc. damaged entire countries (Puerto Rico and Bahamas) so much that there is question whether they will ever recover from the effects. The deadliest tornado season on record occurred in 2011, including the devastating April 27, 2011, tornado outbreak and the deadliest U.S. tornado in modern history, which struck Joplin, Missouri (158 fatalities). Between 2011 and 2017, drought and water shortages impacted the western U.S., with California seeing its worst drought in history (or worst in 1,200 years). The drought killed 100-plus million trees and resulted in water shortages that affected crops and caused municipalities to limit water use. Record-setting rainfall and floods occurred in locations such as Colorado, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, etc., resulting in hundreds dead and millions of dollars in crop losses.  If the last 10 years have taught scientists, climatologists, policy makers and the general public anything, it's that we have our work cut out for us if we are to reverse this trend of increasing disasters around the world. The atmosphere continues to warm, and all model projections point to a progressively warmer future Earth if action is not taken. And this action can't be tomorrow or by 2025, 2050 or some other arbitrary year; it has to happen now if we want to reduce future economic and societal losses. Yes, it's easy to be afraid and fearful of the future when all we see as scientists and citizens are rising temperatures, deadlier disasters and a lack of drastic climate action. However, we can't let this fear result in crippling inaction; we have to let it motivate us to fight, not for just our futures but our children's, grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's futures. Let's give them a chance to see the world the way we used to: beautiful.  Jerusha Conner, associate professor of education and counseling The latter half of this decade witnessed a resurgence of student activism, sparked by Black Lives Matter protests and the dramatic events at the University of Missouri in the fall of 2015. Highlighting 2015 as a pivotal year for student activism, the authors of the American Freshman National Norms survey deemed the 2015 freshman class "the most ambitious" group in 49 years of the survey's administration in terms of their expectations for participating in protests, connecting to their communities and influencing the political structure; and the numbers of freshmen who report having participated in demonstrations as high school seniors has ticked up every year since. In my own research with college student activists in 2016, I found three striking trends: Nearly half came to college already seeing themselves as activists; only 10% consider themselves single-issue activists (with more than half identifying seven or more issues their activism addressed); and a significant share were not protesting their own institution's policies or practices, but instead concerning themselves with broader social and political issues. They are what I call "outward-facing activists," who use their campuses to stage and mobilize campaigns, rather than as the targets of their change efforts. In the last couple of years, we have seen activism among high school students take off, as students have staged walkouts and school strikes to protest inaction on climate change and gun violence. Although these movements may appear narrowly focused on a single issue, the students involved have intentionally advanced an intersectional perspective, which draws attention to the racialized, economic and gendered dimensions of the multifaceted problems they are seeking to address. Digital natives, these young people have deployed the affordances of social media not only to mobilize their peers in large-scale collective action, but also to attract and sustain the attention of the media, pressure business leaders and politicians and shape public understanding of the issues. One interesting shift with this generation of student activists is that, rather than turning their backs on the system or seeking to upend it, they are focused on enhancing voter registration and turnout, especially among young people. And their efforts appear to be working. Youth turnout in the 2018 midterms was double that of 2014, and record numbers of youth are continuing to register to vote. As the decade comes to a close and the 2020 campaign season revs up, the engagement of student activists in electoral politics will be important to continue to track.

The United Nations Climate Panel released a grim report on September 25, with lead author and French climate scientist Valerie Masson-Delmotte warning, "Climate change is already irreversible. Due to the heat uptake in the ocean, we can't go back." She shared (1) that seas are rising 2.5 times faster than the rate from 1900 to 1990, (2) that from 2006 to 2015, the ice melting from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's mountain glaciers has accelerated and they are now losing 720 billion tons of ice a year and (3) that marine animals are likely to decrease 15%, and catches by fisheries in general are expected to decline 21% to 24%, by the end of the century because of climate change. Villanova's Stephen M. Strader, PhD, a hazards geographer and atmospheric scientist, says because the earth is warming faster than previously thought we have to act now to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. "Unfortunately, there is a momentum to the climate system. Even if we 100% curb global greenhouse gas emissions immediately, we have committed to substantial global warming." Dr. Strader adds that an interesting note in the United Nations report is the indication that climate action is inseparable from sustainable development. The report mentions that an important aspect of climate change effects is their disproportionate impact on the poor and most vulnerable regions of the world. "Building more sustainable communities will not only reduce inequality and vulnerability," he says. "It will also help fight global climate change. They are hand in hand." "Climate change is an existential crisis to human beings everywhere, regardless of where you live," says Dr. Strader. "It is affecting and will continue to have consequences related to shelter, food and water—the basic necessities to sustain life. The lack of action by politicians, policy makers and the general public is alarming given the threat all of humanity is facing. The threat is not just 10 or 50 years from now, but today."