Mother Nature wanted to bid adieu to 2013 with her own fireworks.
On Hawaii's Big Island on Sunday, the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope's Cloud Camera atop Mauna Kea captured a rare and dazzling lightning storm. The National Weather Service tracked roughly ten to twenty thousand lightning strikes between Sunday evening and Monday morning, most of which were inner cloud and never hit land.
"It's fairly rare to get this much lightning in such a short amount of time," said KITV4 weather anchor Cam Tran.
The incredible high-altitude light show was captured from a 13,000-foot vantage point, but the storm reached up to 30 to 40 thousand feet tall. The result? Snow on Mauna Kea, torrential rains (and a sinkhole!) at sea level, and a god-like display of rolling clouds and powerful flashes up above.
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