The most electric place on Earth!

At one lake in Venezuela, lightning flashes 28 times a minute!

You know the saying “lightning never strikes the same place twice”?
Forget it. On a good night, one lake in Venezuela hosts thousands of
lightning strikes every hour.

The phenomenon is known variously as the Beacon of Maracaibo,

Catatumbo lightning or – cue dramatic roll of thunder - the “everlasting
storm”. That last one might be a slight exaggeration but where the
Catatumbo River meets Lake Maracaibo there is an average of 260 storm
days per year.

Here the night sky is regularly illuminated for nine hours with thousands
of flashes of naturally produced electricity.

In 2014, official figures from NASA revealed that the Brahmaputra

Valley of far eastern India had the highest monthly lightning flash rate
between April and May when thunderous activity ushers in the annual
monsoon.

But Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo earned a place in the Guinness Book of

World Records for “highest concentration of lightning” with 250
lightning flashes per square kilometer each year. The storms ease off in
the dryer months of January and February and are most spectacular at the
peak of the wet season around October. At this time of year, you can see
an average of 28 lightning flashes each minute.

Experts have sought reasons for the area’s uniquely intense storms for
decades. In the 1960s it was thought uranium deposits in the bedrock
attracted more lightning strikes. More recently, scientists suggested the
conductivity of the air above the lake was boosted by the abundance of
methane from oil fields below.

Neither theory has been proved though, so for now this record breaking
light show is attributed to a potent combination of topography and wind
patterns.

“A lot of the [lightning] hotspots are tied to features in the terrain

- slopes of mountain ranges, curved coastlines, combinations of those,”
explains Dr Daniel Cecil from the Global Hydrology and Climate
Centre’s lightning team.

“Having irregularities like that in the terrain can help generate wind
patterns and heating or cooling patterns that would boost the likelihood of
thunderstorms.”

In North West Venezuela, South America’s largest lake flows past the
city of Maracaibo to join the Caribbean Sea. It lies in a fork of the Andes,
so is surrounded on the other three sides by high mountain ridges. During
the day, the hot tropical sun evaporates water from the lake and
surrounding wetland. As night approaches, winds from the sea push this
warm air into cold air cascading from the mountains. The hot air rises and
dense cumulonimbus clouds form as towering plumes reaching up to 12
km high.

These distinctive storm clouds might look fluffy on the outside but inside
a battle is raging. Where water droplets in the rising humid air collide
with ice crystals in the cold air, static charges are produced and an
electrical storm is unleashed.

The static electricity discharges in zig-zags of lightning that strike the

ground, pass between clouds or flash inside them. The thunder itself is the
shock wave of sound created when the heat of the lightning, which can be
three times hotter than the surface of the sun, suddenly compresses the
surrounding air. Alongside the sound and visuals are the special effects of
heavy rain and hail.

The Catatumbo lightning is bright enough that it can be seen 400 km (250
miles) away and colonial sailors were said to use it for navigation. The
force and duration of the storms have inspired many tales but eyewitness
claims the lightning is multi-coloured are a trick of the light.

As it passes through dust or moisture, portions of the white light are

absorbed or diffracted making it appear a different colour. There are also
reports of it being silent but this is another perspective trick. The sluggish
speed of sound compared to light means thunder may not reach distant
spectators.