After sleeping for over 40 years, the Philippines' Taal volcano awoke over the weekend, blasting a plume of ash at least 32,000 feet into the sky.
And in this ominous plume, thunder clapped and lightning streaked through the dark column of volcanic ash.
The profoundly dangerous Taal — with over 24 million people living within 60 miles of the volcano — produced a scintillating, at times mesmerizing, light show. (Taal's activity also prompted a mass evacuation of almost 1 million people should there be a bigger eruption.)
Volcanic lightning, however captivating, is common, explained Sonja Behnke, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory who researches these volcanic phenomena and has repeatedly observed volcanic lightning in places like Iceland and Japan. Read more...
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