- The met office claimed Wednesday mornings storm produced almost 150,000 lightning strikes in a two hour period which is by far unprecedented and smashes the old world record by a country mile.
- The old record was a mere ten thousand lightning flashes which lit up Hong Kong's night sky over the weekend (Jul 9-10-16) during a thunderstorm that lasted for twelve hours.
The Met Office claims the storm above Cornwall on Wednesday morning produced almost 150,000 lightning strikes in a two hour period which is by far unprecedented and smashes the old world record by a country mile.
The old record was a mere ten thousand lightning flashes which lit up Hong Kong's night sky over the weekend (Jul 9-10-16) during a thunderstorm that lasted for twelve hours.
According to the South China Morning Post, the Hong Kong Observatory said the number of strikes was "very high" for a summer storm.
It reportedly surpassed the July 2005 24-hour record of 9966 strikes.
However, the Post reported that because the strikes spanned over two days, they might not go down in the record books full story here.
Venezuela's Catatumbo River, located in northwestern Venezuela in the state of Zulia, has set the Guinness Book of World Records for highest number of lightning per square kilometer per year.
The region, which was named the "Lightning Capital of the World," receives a whopping 1.2 million lightning bolts every year, which breaks down to 3,600 lightning flashes per hour!
Incredible amounts of rain, a months total in just two hours caused a 4ft wall of water which ripped up roads and damaged 50 homes after freak thunderstorms strike along with thousands of lightning strikes hit the sleepy Cornwall village in the UK.
Could the lightning strikes have been influenced by pressure caused by solar wind, well, it would seem unlikely Spaceweather.com reported on the 18th of July: SUBSIDING STORMS: The big geomagnetic storm of July 16-17 is finished.
Earth is exiting the wake of the instigating CME and, as a result, geomagnetic activity should remain below G1-storm levels on July 18th.
However, a huge Coronal Hole on the Sun is turning toward Earth as we speak.
Spaceweather.com goes on : NORTHERN CORONAL HOLE: A hole in the sun's atmosphere has opened up and it is spewing solar wind into space.
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is monitoring the structure, which sprawls across nearly half of the sun's northern hemisphere:
However the solar wind being ejected from the giant hole is expected to reach Earth around the 21st.
Facts about thunderstorms
- A bolt of lightning lasts on average for about one 10,000th of a second but could light a 100 Watt light bulb for three months
- Lightning travels through the air at around 270,000 mph - that's around 75 miles every second
- Lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun reaching temperatures of around 30,000 °C
- Thunderstorms can trigger asthma
- The island of Java is the most thundery place on earth with 220 days of thunderstorms every year.
