In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald this evening, Georgina Mitchell
reports that by observing satellite data from the Lightning Image Sensor
for the past 16 years, meteorologists have named Lake Maracaibo
in Venezuela as the "lightning capital of the world".
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Originally Posted by Georgina Mitchell. Sydney Morning Herald
At the junction of Catatumbo River and Lake Maracaibo, a Venezuelan bay at the tip of the South American continent, there is an average of 233 flashes of lightning per square kilometre per year.
There is an average of 233 flashes of lightning per square kilometre per year.
This amount of lightning has topped Africa's Congo Basin, the area previously thought to have the most lightning strikes each year.
Lake Maracaibo's new official title was announced by researchers in the journal Bureau of the American Meteorology Society, firming up its reputation as "Venezuela's everlasting storm".
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Article here -
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/we...#ixzz48u5sMbxm
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Dr. Rachel Ifanger Albrecht, et. al., American Meterological Society
Lake Maracaibo’s pattern of convergent windflow (mountain-valley, lake and sea breezes) occurs over the warm lake waters nearly year-round and contributes to nocturnal thunderstorm development 297 days per year in average. These thunderstorms are very localized and their persistent development anchored in one location accounts for the high flash rate density.
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Africa is the continent with the most lightning hotspots, followed by Asia, South America, North America, and Australia. A climatological map of the local hour of maximum flash rate density reveals that most oceanic total lightning maxima are related to nocturnal thunderstorms, while continental lightning tends to occur during the afternoon. Most of the principal continental maxima are located near major mountain ranges, revealing the importance of local topography in thunderstorm development.
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American Meteorological Society, Albrecht, et. al., "Where are the lightning hotspots on Earth?" abstract and article here -
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/...S-D-14-00193.1