WATCH: Strange storm lights up city
Heat lightning phenomenon has scores of Richards Bay residents sky gazing at 3am
A RARE atmospheric phenomenon called ‘heat lightning’ bedazzled the City of uMhlathuze in the early hours of this morning (Friday).
By 6.30am, chat groups on mobile messenger application Whatsapp were abuzz with Zululanders sharing captivating videos of the soundless flashes of light that blanketed the skies from around 3am.
But according to AccuWeather.com meteorologists, despite its name, the event had nothing to do with the hot and humid weather hitting the region.
‘The old wives’ tale that a hot, humid summer night can generate lightning without a thunderstorm, called ‘heat lighting’, is exactly that – a meteorological myth.
‘Heat lightning is just normal lightning from a thunderstorm too far away for the sounds of thunder to be transmitted.’
‘It is a storm happening a significant distance from an observer, who is only able to see the flash and not hear the thunder.
‘The typical sound of rumbling thunder is muffled either by long distances or by a blocking, mountainous terrain.
‘The cracking sound of lightning is thunder, which results from the rapid expansion of hot and cold air masses.
‘Another reason no sound accompanies heat lightning is the idea that thunder travels much more slowly than light, and it’s unlikely to hear thunder from a distance greater than 10 miles (16 kilometers).
‘The distribution of hot and cold temperatures around a thunderstorm causes sound waves to be bent, or refracted, upward into the sky rather than toward the ground where an observer may be listening.
‘Sometimes the distribution of temperature is so great that any sounds being generated from a thunderstorm pass much too high in the sky to be heard by the human ear.’
