![]() So what makes Catatumbo Lightning consistent? In 2015, Muñoz and his team sent weather balloons onto Lake Maracaibo. Ten minutes of Catatumbo Lightning could illuminate all of South America. The release discharges a zigzag of electrical energy strong enough to light 100 million bulbs. When water droplets of humid air collide with ice crystals from the cold air, it produces static charges that build up. At sunset, strong winds whip the mountains, jolting warm air up to form cumulonimbus clouds that rage inside. The inflowing Caribbean Sea provides an endless supply of warm water, while the hot tropical sun pulls additional moisture from the lake. Mountain ridges cup three sides of Lake Maracaibo, leaving a narrow window open north to the Gulf of Venezuela. Unstable air and moisture are key, and Catatumbo Lightning gets a boost from a unique topography. “We want to make life easier for them with lightning detection and prediction,” Muñoz said.Īll thunderstorms follow a formula: rapidly rising warm air collides with moist air. Most fishermen understand fish bite best at dusk when Catatumbo Lightning brews. Catatumbo Lightning strikes people three to four times more here than in the United States. “These people, the forgotten people, are frequently getting struck by lightning,” Muñoz said. Today, the lake supports 20,000 fishermen, and many live in palafitos, one-room, tin shacks. He called the floating city Venezuela, or “Little Venice,” or so one story goes. When Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci sailed into Lake Maracaibo in 1499, he encountered a city of huts built on stilts. Sailors have embraced this phenomenon for centuries, using the Maracaibo lightning as a beacon. You actually don’t feel fear,” said Joaquín Díaz-Lobatón, a physicist and researcher at the Centro de Modelado Científico at Universidad del Zulia in Venezuela. “You should be afraid, but it is so impressive that your fear gets overwhelmed. Suspended over the mouth of the Catatumbo River, which locals call the “river of fire,” this strobe light brightens night into day. “The lightning can be so continuous that you see everything around you,” Muñoz said. Shortly after dusk, lightning strikes Lake Maracaibo about twenty-eight times a minute for up to nine hours. Díaz/Centro de Modelado Científico) River of fire Seen from the shore of Lake Maracaibo, lightning strikes Congo Mirador, a pala fit o or a stilt house village, near the mouth of the Catatumbo River. If the team could capture its physical mechanisms, they could be the first to predict lightning on a seasonal scale. That is huge.” Catatumbo Lightning is consistent on a daily scale, but its behavior shifts along the year and between years. He said, “We’re talking about three months in advance. The lightning is so consistent-occurring 300 days a year at the same time and in the same area, where the Catatumbo River meets Lake Maracaibo-it has earned its own proper name, Catatumbo Lightning.Īround the world, lightning is forecast only a few hours, and at best, days in advance. ![]() ![]() Muñoz, a physicist and researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “A lot of people die each year,” said Ángel G. A quarter of Venezuela’s population lives in the highest concentration of lightning on Earth, 250 flashes per square kilometer (0.4 square miles) per year. Wings of phosphorescent pink unfold to illuminate Lake Maracaibo, a brackish bay that opens north to the Caribbean Sea. A lightning bolt fractures the night sky.
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