The mysterious "Relámpago del Catatumbo"
(Catatumbo lightning) is a unique natural phenomenon in the world. Located on
the mouth of the Catatumbo river at Lake
Maracaibo (Venezuela), the phenomenon is a cloud-to-cloud lightning that
forms a voltage arc more than five kilometre high during 140 to 160 nights a
year, 10 hours a night, and as many as 280 times an hour. This almost permanent
storm occurs over the marshlands where the Catatumbo River feeds into Lake
Maracaibo and it is considered the greatest single generator of
ozone in the planet, judging from the intensity of the cloud-to-cloud discharge
and great frequency.
The area sees an estimated 1,176,000 electrical
discharges per year, with an intensity of up to 400,000 amperes, and visible up
to 400 km away. This is the reason why the storm is also known as the Maracaibo
Beacon as light has been used for navigation by ships for ages. The collision
with the winds coming from the Andes Mountains causes the storms and associatedlightning,
a result of electrical discharges through ionised gases, specifically the
methane created by the decomposition of organic matter in the
marshes. Being lighter than air, the gas rises up to the clouds, feeding the
storms. Some local environmentalists hope to put the area under the protection
of UNESCO, as it is an exceptional phenomenon, the greatest source of
its type for regenerating the planet's ozone layer.
