The Greatest Storm on Earth
Eden Washington is a 6th grade FNN Reporter at Friendship Public Charter School Online. Photos from Google.
April 13, 2021. OMG! I thought lightning never strikes the same place twice. I don’t know if I should run for cover or grab a chair and binoculars to watch this phenomenon on the porch of the palafito (overwater bungalow or stilt house) in El Congo, a fishing village built on the water. Typically when lightning strikes, I sit in a quiet place, take a nap, or read a book, but the reason I am here at Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela (Little Venice) is to watch this fascinating display which can only be found in this very location.
Thunderstorms develop under specific conditions, when rapidly rising warm air collides with cool moisture. This Catumbo lightening happens because the lake has a unique topography which aids the never ending storm, where the Catatumbo River flows into Lake Maracaibo forming pressure with the cool winds coming off the Andes Mountains and methane gas rising from decomposing plants and other matter in the bog area where the two waterways meet. The lightning strikes occur 140 to 160 nights a year, 10 hours per day, and up to 280 times per hour. Moving around in Lake Maracaibo during the day, you wouldn’t think that such a display of lights strikes nightly like clockwork and you certainly would not suspect that the lightning is good for the earth. The lightning strikes from the Catatumba event is the single largest ozone replenisher for the entire world. It seems a bit of a stretch to think that “thunderstorms in Venezuela can help to replenish a hole in the ozone layer in Antarctica, but it does,” according to George Kourounis from Angry Planet.
As I watched the lightning strike, many thoughts popped into my head. This would be an excellent backdrop for Halloween fun. We could all sit in the palafito and tell scary stories, play truth or dare and the dare would be to stand on the deck while it is storming for a whole five minutes. Looking at the lightning strike made me think of a maze in the sky to get to a secret place somewhere in the sky if I can manage to maneuver between lightning strikes without getting zapped. I feel like I can unlock the heavens. As scary as this experience is, I am intrigued by the never ending storm.
Tomorrow, I’ll hop in my boat to float around the village to see what else is here in El Congo, but for now, I’m content to try and figure out the magnificent mazes that appear in the night sky.
Eden Washington is a 6th grade scholar at Friendship Public Charter School Online.