Wow.
Last year’s colossal eruption of the Hunga undersea volcano near Tonga produced the most intense lightning storm ever recorded on Earth, scientists announced in a new study published this week.
In fact, at one point during the 11-hour lightning storm, an incredible 2,600 flashes per minute were recorded.
“This eruption triggered a supercharged thunderstorm, the likes of which we’ve never seen,” said Alexa Van Eaton, a volcanologist at the United States Geological Survey, who led the study.
The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Previously, the annual lightning report from Vaisala estimated The Hunga Tonga volcano explosion generated hundreds of thousands of lightning events in just six hours, the most extreme concentration of lightning ever detected.
Amazing facts about the eruption and lightning storm
- The eruption lasted at least 11 hours, several hours longer than previously known
- There were a total of 200,000 lightning flashes during the storm
- The volcanic plume produced the highest-altitude lightning flashes ever measured, at some 12 to 19 miles above sea level
- Lightning “surfed” giant waves that rippled through the volcanic plume
‘We’ve never seen anything like that before’
High-resolution lightning data from four separate sources – never previously used all together – have now let scientists peer into the volcanic plume from the event, teasing out new phases of the eruption’s life cycle and gaining insights into the weird weather it created, the study said.
“With this eruption, we discovered that volcanic plumes can create the conditions for lightning far beyond the realm of meteorological thunderstorms we’ve previously observed,” Van Eaton said. “It turns out, volcanic eruptions can create more extreme lightning than any other kind of storm on Earth.”
According to the study, that also includes lightning that comes from supercell thunderstorms and from hurricanes.
“It wasn’t just the lightning intensity that drew us in,” Van Eaton added. She and her colleagues were also puzzled by the concentric rings of lightning, centered on the volcano, that expanded and contracted over time.
“The scale of these lightning rings blew our minds. We’ve never seen anything like that before, there’s nothing comparable in meteorological storms. Single lightning rings have been observed, but not multiples, and they’re tiny by comparison.”
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An ‘explosive event’
The volcano, which is located in the southern Pacific Ocean, began erupting in December 2021, but its most explosive event did not occur until Jan. 15, 2022, Space.com said.
During the Jan. 15 eruption, it generated atmospheric shock waves, sonic booms and tsunami waves that traveled the world, according to NASA. It was the most powerful atmospheric explosion ever recorded on the planet.
At least six people died as a result of the eruption worldwide.
Contributing: Dinah Voyles Pulver
