1/31/2024: Densest lightning on Earth occurs over sea, not land

Dark thunderclouds are lit from within by lightning over a flat grey ocean.

Lightning off the coast of Cancun, Mexico. The largest thunderstorms, flaunting the biggest lightning megaflashes, frequent the Great Plains in North America and the eastern La Plata basin in South America, but the storms with the highest density of flashes occur over the ocean, mostly through the Gulf of Mexico and east of South Africa, a new study finds.
Credit: Keith Pomakis, CC BY-SA 2.5

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