Superbolts are more likely to strike the closer a storm cloud's electrical charging zone is to the land or ocean's surface, a new study finds. These conditions are responsible for superbolt "hotspots" above some oceans and ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 28, 2023
0
175
A team of planetary scientists at Arizona State University has found evidence that the multitude of bright flashes in Venus' atmosphere may be due to meteors passing through, not lightning strikes. In their paper published ...
Lightning is one of the most awe-inspiring phenomena in nature, posing direct threats to human society, such as fires, power outages, and communication disruptions, and triggering other atmospheric phenomena and changes in ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 12, 2023
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78
The fast-moving fire that ripped through Maui's historic town of Lahaina killed more than 90 people, making it the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, but power ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 15, 2023
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1
Dry lightning can still be disastrous even when conditions aren't so dry, a study has found. These cloud-to-ground strikes during little to no rainfall were previously thought to pose wildfire danger only if occurring with ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 14, 2023
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28
On July 21, 2023, over 35,000 people were denied entry to Rock the South's outdoor country music festival in Cullman, Ala., at 3 p.m. due to the threat of lightning in the area. New lightning prediction technology developed ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 9, 2023
0
1
A research group led by Kyoto University, in cooperation with a network of citizen supporters, has collected data from gamma-ray glows—a phenomenon where high-energy photons crash to the ground from rolling thunderclouds—that ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 13, 2023
0
342
The first ever satellite instrument capable of continuously detecting lightning across Europe and Africa has now been switched on. New animations from the innovative 'Lighting Imager' confirm the instrument will revolutionize ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 5, 2023
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9
It was a smell that invoked a memory. Both for Emily Kuchlbauer in North Carolina and Ryan Bomba in Chicago. It was smoke from wildfires, the odor of an increasingly hot and occasionally on-fire world.
Environment
Jul 1, 2023
0
32
The January 15, 2022, eruption of Hunga Volcano in Tonga continues to break records. According to a new study, the eruption created a "supercharged" thunderstorm that produced the most intense lightning ever recorded. There ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 20, 2023
0
111
