Volcanic lightning during massive eruption

During a recent volcanic eruption at the highly active Sakurajima volcano on the Japanese island of Kyushu, filmmaker Marc Szeglat captured some pretty incredible footage of a lightning storm generated by the volcano.

The Sakurajima volcano became active in 1955, and is dangerously close to the city of Kagoshima and it's 600,000 or so residents. Volcanic lightning, also known as a dirty thunderstorm, is pretty rare and usually happens during large and powerful eruptions. Sakurajima is something of a hotspot for lightning storms.

via http://www.cnet.com/news/crazy-footage-shows-volcanic-lightning-during-massive-eruption/
Retroboysays...

Funny how when they accelerate the video at the beginning the sense of true scale is all but lost and the mountain looks only a few feet away.

It's like those saltpeter-and-sugar smoke bomb volcanoes I used to make in my back yard when I was a kid.

newtboysays...

Not fully understood by scientists?!? It's static electricity caused by all the particles rubbing together, simple, known for decades. It's the same way regular lightning is created, just with larger, heavier particles closer together in a volcano. What are they talking about?

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