Photographer Uğur İkizler captures all the lightning strikes that occurred over 50 minutes during a severe thunderstorm in a single image.
An astronomer photographer captured a time-lapse photo of over 100 lightning strikes during a thunderstorm in Turkey. Uğur İkizler created this impressive image by combining multiple sky frames taken near his home in the coastal town of Mudanya, collected over a span of 50 minutes at midnight on June 16, which means that, on average, a lightning strike occurred every 30 seconds.
The image captures at least 3 types of lightning during the thunderstorm. (Photo: Uğur İkizler).
“Each lightning strike is beautiful on its own, but when I combined all the strikes into one frame, the sight is truly terrifying. The thunderstorm is a grand visual feast,” İkizler shared.
At least 3 different types of lightning can be clearly seen in the image, including cloud-to-cloud lightning, cloud-to-ground lightning, and cloud-to-water lightning, according to Spaceweather.com. The occurrence of multiple lightning strikes in a thunderstorm like this is not uncommon. Globally, there are 1.4 billion lightning strikes each year, averaging 3 million strikes per day or 44 strikes per second, according to the UK Met Office.
Each individual lightning bolt has a voltage ranging from 100 million to one billion volts. Such energy can raise the surrounding air temperature to between 10,000 and 33,000 degrees Celsius, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In comparison, the surface temperature of the sun is only about 5,500 degrees Celsius.
The new image displays the characteristic zigzag shape of lightning. Researchers are still unsure of the exact reason for this winding shape, but a 2022 study suggests it is the result of a form of oxygen with high electrical conductivity accumulating abnormally as the lightning approaches the ground.
