Lightning Strikes 1,500 Times In 5 Minutes Above SoCal: Video

LOS ANGELES, CA — Southern California was treated to a spectacular display courtesy of mother nature Tuesday night as lightning ripped through sky at a breathtaking pace — striking 1,489 times off the coast in just five minutes, according to the National Weather Service.

Normally, in a good storm you might expect to see 200 or fewer pulses of lightning, said National Weather Service Meteorologist Casey Oswant. A lightning pulse happens when lightning strikes in the clouds but doesn’t reach the ground, explained Oswant. It looks kind of like someone turning the lights on and off in the cloud.

What made this lightning storm so spectacular?

“We have an atmospheric river making its way through and hitting California, and that is providing a lot of moisture into the atmosphere,” Oswant said.

The atmospheric river combined with an upper level disturbance that lifted the clouds high into the atmosphere so that the top of the clouds had ice particles and the bottom had liquid, made conditions ripe for lightning, explained Oswant.

While most of the lightning struck off the coast, hundreds of lightning pulses were recorded over the Santa Barbara-Los Angeles county region. A Delta jet was even struck by lightning during Tuesday night’s storm, forcing the pilot to turn back and land.

Weather service officials warned residents to resist the urge to go outside and look at the lightning because it can strike several miles outside the core of the storm.

While parts of Los Angeles saw three-quarters to an inch of rain over the last 24 hours, the lightning display has largely passes, said Oswant.