Ten Impressive lightnings pictures and videos

Here's a collection of the most impressive lightning photos all over the Net.
I tried to avoid faked and non reliable sources photos as far as I could, and finding the original source every time that was possible.

Enjoy!


Photograph by Chris Kotsiopoulos From "Top Shots," National Geographic, April 2012

A severe thunderstorm sparked the imagination of Kotsiopoulos, 39. On Ikaria island, he set his camera on a tripod and took repeated 20-second exposures, then combined 70 of them into a single frame. "After 83 minutes," he says, "I ended up with this wall of lightning!"

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This photo was taken on August 14, 2007 using a Nikon D200 by Flickr's user "aixcracker"

This one stroke just on the other side of the street. Quite a nice bang it had. Luckily the tree didn't catch fire. Taken from my balcony.
Cropped this from the larger photo. And for the viewers, I took a LARGE amount of photos today when trying to get some of the lightning over here.
The photo made the first page in the local newspaper. I'll take a photo of the paper and posted here later. And that has been done now.
This lightning has been confirmed by the lightning radar and is part of a scientific research publication. I'll publish the link to the paper when it has become available to the public.

This is as real as it gets, the only two things done to this photo are:
1) cropping
2) noise reduction

Update regarding the trees - they have been taken down now.

Update: This photo is considered to be among the top 10 photos in Flickr

Credits: aixcracker

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This image have continued to circulate since they first appeared online in 2008 and attributed to Carlos Gutierrez/UPI

The photographs depict an eruption of the Chaiten volcano in Chile in May 2008. The volcano, which was previously dormant for thousands of years, is located around 1300km south of Santiago. An article about the eruption published on the Mail Online website on May 7th 2008 describes the event:

As clouds of toxic ash and dust tower into the sky, they ionise the air, generating an explosive electrical storm. Colossal forks of lightning spark around the noxious plume as it spews from the volcano's crater, creating an image of raw, terrifying energy - as if the air itself were ablaze.

Several thousand residents were evacuated from the area and the plume from the eruption left large areas of land covered in a layer of ash.

Source 1
Source 2

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I wasn't able to find the original source for this one, the only best resolution so far coming from that Russian wallpaper site.
Anyone who have informations about the original source for this photo is welcome!

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This picture of a tornado and lightning stroke over Lake Okeechobee was taken at about 10 PM on June 15, 1991. The photograph was taken by Mr. Fred Smith.

Source: wayback machine (add at the end of the url the original address: [www.srh.noaa.gov...]) as the real original source isn't available anymore:



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I wasn't able to find the original source for this one, the only best resolution so far coming from that wallpaper site.
Anyone who have informations about the original source for this photo is welcome!

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Photograph by Daniel Basualto, European Pressphoto Agency

Illuminated and electrified by lightning, a roiling ash and gas plume rises over Chile's Puyehue volcano (map) Sunday.

There may be as many as three distinct types of volcanic lightning, volcanic seismologist Steve McNutt told National Geographic News in 2010.

Large, spectacular "natural fireworks" sometimes accompany eruptions, along with an intermediate type, which shoots up from a volcano's vents and reaches lengths of about 1.8 miles (3 kilometers), and finally bolts that can be as short as about three feet (one meter) long and last just a few milliseconds.

Source: National Geographic

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A man survived a lightning strike during a thunderstorm Saturday night, Industry police said.
"God was definitely on his side," said officer Aaron Lopez.
Lopez said the man, whom he declined to identify, was with a Boy Scout troop preparing to camp in a field at 269 Kelly Road at about 8:30 p.m.

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A Qantas flight about to land in Sydney is hit by lightning mid-air on the 5th of September 2004.

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Video of a near-miss lightning strike in Norman, OK in July 2007, as the cloud-to-ground stroke nearly struck storm chaser Curtis McDonald. This is one of the most incredible lightning videos I have ever seen!

The first one would be more awesome if it were just a simple picture taken
and not a collage or whatever.

reply to post by elevenaugust


Nice! My favourite is the 7th phot down. It looks very powerfull. As an amature photographer, i aprreciate how hard it must of been to take these shots. I'm still having trouble capturing a single fork!

The video of the guy getting hit by lightening looks pretty fake to me. The guys who is filming it reactions give it away also.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


yeah, totally fake.

Some nice pictures,though. Thanks for sharing