Volcanic lightning

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Volcanic lightning is an electrical discharge caused by a volcanic eruption rather than from an ordinary thunderstorm. Volcanic lightning arises from colliding and fragmenting particles of volcanic ash (and sometimes ice), which generate static electricity within the volcanic plume, leading to the name dirty thunderstorm. Moist convection currents and ice formation also drive the eruption plume dynamics and can trigger volcanic lightning. Unlike ordinary thunderstorms, volcanic lightning can also occur when there are no ice crystals in the ash cloud. The earliest recorded observations of volcanic lightning are from Pliny the Younger, describing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, "There was a most intense darkness rendered more appalling by the fitful gleam of torches at intervals obscured by the transient blaze of lightning." The first studies of volcanic lightning were also conducted at Mount Vesuvius by Luigi Palmieri who observed the eruptions of 1858, 1861, 1868, and 1872 from...

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