We all know how hard it is to catch a lightning strike with a photo, so what are the odds of catching six strikes simultaneously? Not impossible apparently, and especially if a massive lightning storm ungulfs a third of the continent you're shooting photos from.
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FROM SPACE: This image supplied by Landgate shows lightning activity from the past 24 hours in WA, up until 8.30am this morning. Source: PerthNow
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This storm coincided with the arrival of a powerful burst of energy from the Sun. A Coronal Mass Ejection released on January 17th impacted the Earth on the 20th, and as the map above shows an electrical storm enveloped a large portion of the world. Was this just a coincidence, or could these two phenomenon be related? I don't know for sure, but my gut sez yes, and it may not be too far fetched to believe. After all, NOAA sez:
"Scientists that study lightning have a better understanding today of the process that produces lightning, but there is still more to learn about the role of solar flares on the upper atmosphere, the earth's electromagnetic field, and ice in storms."
"Scientists that study lightning have a better understanding today of the process that produces lightning, but there is still more to learn about the role of solar flares on the upper atmosphere, the earth's electromagnetic field, and ice in storms."
It sure makes intuitive sense that high energy bombardment of the magnetosphere and atmosphere would contribute to lightening formation.
These videos from SolarWatcher do a better job explaining the interesting and ongoing solar situation than I can.
Two additional solar flares are inbound, predicted to hit around 2am (+/- 7 hours) on January 21st, 2012:
It will be interesting to see if we see an uptick in lightning (or other) activity when this one hits. According to SolarWatcher, there is concern of increased Earthquake and Volcano activity in the days following these inbound CMEs: