RP314 A River of Fire in the Sky

 RP314 A River of Fire in the Sky

In northern Venezuela, where the Catatumbo River flows into Lake Maracaibo, thunder and lightning rage on up to 300 nights each year. It's an eternal thunderstorm that lights up the sky with over 20,000 flashes of lightning per night and is known to local tribes as "the river of fire in the sky."
The first mention of this extraordinary natural phenomenon is in a 1597 poem, which tells how the ships of English pirate Sir Francis Drake, who was planning to attack the area, were illuminated by the recurring flashes of lightning. As a result, Drake's surprise attack was spotted and prevented.
The lightning is so bright that it can be seen 500 km away on the Caribbean island of Aruba, leading to its alternate nickname, “The Maracaibo Lighthouse.”
Though the lightning itself is no different from that in common thunderstorms, a number of factors make the storms truly spectacular. Large amounts of natural gas in the area's atmosphere allow the lightning to recharge faster than usual, resulting in more flashes over shorter periods of time. Also, dust particles in the atmosphere often give the flashes an unusual red or orange hue, and storms can last for up to 10 hours at a time.
The prevailing theory is that the storms are caused by warm winds flowing in from the Caribbean Sea to the north, which mix with cold air blowing from the Andes mountain range to the south.
Mountains of almost 5,000 meters in height surround the lake, and this traps the hot and cold winds in a relatively small area, causing an intense concentration of conditions perfect for a thunderstorm.
The thunderstorm is also one of the greatest individual sources of natural ozone in the world. Ozone is created as the lightning rips through molecules of oxygen, rearranging them into ozone. The new ozone usually stays in the lower levels of the atmosphere, however, never actually reaching and healing the damaged ozone layer.
For those eager to see the spectacle firsthand, a warning: Tourists should be aware that this area of Venezuela is full of drug gang s and armed bandits, making a visit potentially dangerous as well as awe-inspiring.