{"id":8580,"date":"2016-10-04T10:42:06","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T14:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/?p=8580"},"modified":"2016-10-04T10:42:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T14:42:06","slug":"rare-colorful-lightning-sprites-dance-over-hurricane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/2016\/10\/rare-colorful-lightning-sprites-dance-over-hurricane\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Rare, Colorful Lightning Sprites Dance Over Hurricane&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Red sprites are a high-altitude extremely rapid lightning discharge that happens over thunderstorms. \u00a0According to a recent <em>National Geographic<\/em> post, &#8220;sometimes called &#8220;upward lightning&#8221; and &#8220;cloud-to-stratospheric lightning,&#8221; sprites are momentary bursts of electricity that can literally reach the edge of space, about 50 miles above the ground. They&#8217;re rarely documented because they are so short lived (typically about 10 milliseconds) and are often obscured by clouds. In fact, evidence of sprites is so rare, the phenomenon was thought to be a myth until it was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/voices.nationalgeographic.com\/2014\/07\/02\/watch-red-fireworks-at-the-edge-of-space\/\">photographed by a pilot in 1989<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>National Geographic<\/em> has a <em>Weather Channel<\/em> video explaining the sprites and showing some spectacular images of red sprites that were recently photographed over Hurricane Matthew. \u00a0You can see it at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/2016\/10\/lightning-sprites-form-over-hurricane-matthew\/?google_editors_picks=true\">https:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/2016\/10\/lightning-sprites-form-over-hurricane-matthew\/?google_editors_picks=true<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8581\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8581\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/10\/red-sprites-matthew.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8581\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/10\/red-sprites-matthew-300x170.jpg\" alt=\"Source: Frankie Lucena via the Weather Channel\" width=\"300\" height=\"170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/10\/red-sprites-matthew-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/10\/red-sprites-matthew-243x138.jpg 243w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/10\/red-sprites-matthew.jpg 559w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8581\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Frankie Lucena via the Weather Channel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Red sprites are a high-altitude extremely rapid lightning discharge that happens over thunderstorms. \u00a0According to a recent National Geographic post, &#8220;sometimes called &#8220;upward lightning&#8221; and &#8220;cloud-to-stratospheric lightning,&#8221; sprites are momentary bursts of electricity that can literally reach the edge of space, about 50 miles above the ground. They&#8217;re rarely documented because they are so short [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":8581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-science","category-interesting-weather-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8582,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8580\/revisions\/8582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}