By Sharon Knox Deuby | 2023-12-29
On 12/26/2023 04:00 pm by Peter Lowenstein| Mutare, Zimbabwe
Amazing Thunderstorm with Multiple Lightning Strikes on Boxing Day.
Between 4 and 5 pm in the afternoon on Boxing Day there was a spectacular almost dry thunderstorm which approached from the northwest and generated more than 75 lightning strikes on the hills and ground in the vicinity of Chikanga, Dangamvura, Furuka, Hob House and Zimta Park. This is the greatest amount of electrical activity in a storm lasting less than an hour that I have seen in 11 years of taking photographs from my viewpoint on Murambi Heights. See accompanying montage and view a time-lapse animation and ‘slideshow’ at https://youtu.be/6RBbpp4_LgI . The last occasion on which so such a high frequency of strikes was observed was on Saturday 27th February 2016 when 16 occurred in almost the same area in just 14 minutes. Please view a video posted in 2016 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR9lndWH7Ls&list=UUmgsBrX_rt4DhbMWkURj8fQ&index=40. The accompanying text describes the very similar circumstances of that storm and the data processing carried out to display the results.
Tripod-mounted Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS40 and DMC-TZ60 compact cameras.
Extraction of all frames showing lightning from five videos. Compilation of time-lapse animation showing all observed lightning, a 'slideshow' showing 75 best selected strikes and a montage of 4 consecutive strikes close together.