Psychedelic
storm
Lightning crashes amid the
smoke and ash rising from the
Halema’uma’u Crater in Hawaii
Volcanoes National Park.
Located within the summit caldera
of Kilauea, the crater measures 770
x 900m across and is sunk 83m into
the ground. It is currently volcanically
active and houses a lake of bubbling
molten lava.
The picture shows a rare
atmospheric phenomenon called
volcanic lightning, also known as a
‘dirty thunderstorm’, which occurs
when static electrical charges are
generated by the collisions of rock
and ash in the volcanic plume. In
a regular thunderstorm it is the
collisions between ice crystals in the
atmosphere that produce the charges
that cause lightning.PHOTO: JOHN MIKAN/CATERS NEWSNATURE