It's not lightning blowing up those transformers, I've lived through enough hurricanes to see it happen spontaneously, implying inductance.
Those are mostly power flashes from short circuits caused by wind.
Imagine what happens when the solar wind hits earth directly, the pressure, alone causes a change in our atmosphere, then the interaction with the magnetic field, causes further interaction. The planet has passed the longest day and is now descending, from here until December the days get shorter and shorter. The planet receives less direct radiation from the sun meaning the air is cooler and thus increases in density, this increases mixing of upper atmosphere air, a lot of which interacts with solar charged particles. Charge and magnetism are coupled, thus static electric energy transfer between the ionosphere and trophosphere increases as a result of air mixing due to changing seasons.
Imagine the solar wind charges the earth and moon differently sufficient to cause an electric discharge between the two.
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