#lightning sprites

[maureen2musings]

"This is nature- not AI. Lightning sprites in Oklahoma. Lightning sprites are large, colorful electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorm clouds. Extremely difficult to see and photograph because of their short duration and faintness, only about a millisecond to capture."

paulmsmithphotography

[briery]

Lightning sprites, or red sprites, often occurring in tandem with lightning. They are short-lived electrical discharges that flash high above thunderstorms in the mesosphere layer of the atmosphere. (Photo by Stephen Hummel, McDonald Observatory, Texas, United States)

[melanovia]

[discocandles]

so as ive gone inside after gawking at the lightning ive been posting about ive been looking it up bc the brains going brrrrrrr

so it's possible to be heat/dry/silent lightning. which is typically just distant lightning that the thunder has like gotten as far as it could before it gets to the watcher's ears. but it's also possible that i could've been seeing sprites, which is lightning that happens higher up in the atmosphere and often can turn the sky a bit red(it was more pinky for me but still)

also bc sprites happen up higher(i think it was the mesosphere but i could be wrong. i just started looking this shit up) it means it happens above some of the clouds, which i definitely saw with how the clouds were outlined by the lightning flashes.

but anyway it looked cool as fuck and i wanted to share what i learned bc i've been geeking out about lightning for like the past hour

[without-ado]

Red Sprites over Oklahoma l Domenico

[vangoghcore]

by paulmsmithphitography

[buggbuzz]

guess what i've been playing

[pentacentric]

SAM WEEK 2025: Day 5 - Sam & Music

A Perfect Day to Chase Tornados | Jim White

red sprite lightning is a real thing, a very eldritch thing. it happens so quickly we can't see it ourselves and have to believe people with very fast cameras instead.

magpie lore is 100% sam, across pretty much all cultures. here we have one, for sorrow.

and many of jim white's songs are winchester songs. this one is feeling like sam right now. this lyric in particular:

But sometimes I feel so goddamned trapped by everything that I know.

And I wish it wasn't so, cause the only thing that anyone should ever know

Is that today's a perfect day to chase tornados.

Yeah, when the wild wind whips around your head you know,

That you have found a perfect day to chase tornados.

[actual-haise]

Despite being mentioned in legends that date back 3000 years ago as the "Darkest Day", the first actual sighting of the legendary Pokémon Eternatus occured on a flight in 2019.

[facts-i-just-made-up]

how are lightning sprites formed

Dangerously. To make a single lightning sprite, over 30 wild strikes have to be collected by specialist lightning farmers and crammed into the can of regular Sprite before it's plugged with a traditional Sprite globule. On average, two employees die per can of lightning flavored Sprite you see on the shelf, making it the 4th unsafest job in America after coal miner, oil rig worker, and literally anything for the government right now.

[liamcarter-photography]

Red thunder

[sashisuse]

THE VOICES.

[a-dream-seeking-light]

Grand Cosmic Fireworks by Angel An

...

The photo, titled Cosmic Fireworks, won the Skyscapes category of the 2023 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich. This breathtaking image not only showcases the awe-inspiring beauty of sprite discharges but also sparks public interest in extreme weather phenomena and their scientific significance. Credit: Angel An

[without-ado]

Meteors and Red Sprites l Paul M Smith

[neapoliting]

shakes fists....i want to make a losh visual novel

[idyllisk]

Red sprite lightning, photos by Nicolas Escurat and Thanasis Papathanasiou