The Ten Most Incredible Lightning Photographs

Published February 5, 2013
Updated February 1, 2024

A Beautiful Lightning Display Over Ikaria

This composite of 70 different shots shows a severe lighting storm as it passes over the Greek island of Ikaria.

The Lightning of Catatumbo, Venezuela

A unique atmospheric phenomenon, the Catatumbo Lightning only occurs in one specific location: where the Catatumbo River empties into Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela.

Cloud-to-Cloud Lightning

Often seen as a single flash, cloud-to-cloud lightning spreads multiple fingers across the sky as seen here above Gurnee, Illinois.

Eight Lightning Strikes At The Bay Bridge

It was a rainy night in San Francisco when an amateur photographer caught eight lightning strikes as they hit the beautiful Bay Bridge in a twenty seconds window.

A Bolt Of Positive Lightning

A rare and beautiful type of lightning, positive lightning can be significantly more powerful than the far more common negative lightning. Often known as ‘bolts from the blue’, positive lightning can appear several miles from the center of a thunderstorm, as can be seen in this photograph on the Bahamas coastline.

author
All That's Interesting
author
A New York-based publisher established in 2010, All That's Interesting brings together subject-level experts in history, true crime, and science to share stories that illuminate our world.
editor
Savannah Cox
editor
Savannah Cox holds a Master's in International Affairs from The New School as well as a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield. Her work as a writer has also appeared on DNAinfo.