A real bolt from the blue: The moment 300,000 volt lightning tore open night sky


This spectacular image shows the awesome moment when a 300,000 volt bolt of lightning tore open the night sky.

Briton Vince Narduzzo was enjoying a glass of red wine in the garden of his second home in France when blasts of thunder shattered the evening calm.

The 49-year-old from Hertfordshire dashed inside to grab a camera, in time to capture the progress of one of the streaks of lightning over the hamlet in Charente Maratime, near La Rochelle.

Spectacular: Caught on camera is the amazing lightning strike near La Rochelle, France

'I was shaking from sheer awe at it - then it occurred to me that the lighting bolt was so close to me that it might have been my last ever picture,' he said.

In his photograph the branches on the lightning bolt appear thinner. In fact, they are simply less bright.

The digital camera was unable to cope with the brightness of the main streak and turned it into a thick blurry line.



Lightning is the discharge of electricity from clouds. A bolt can travel at speeds of 130,000mph and – for a few millionths of a second - it produces one million, million watts of power.

It can heat up the surrounding air to 55,000f – five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

It is triggered when electrical charges build up in storm clouds.

Scientists are unsure what causes this build-up but believe it may be caused by the movement of ice crystals.

Once the charge is powerful enough, an invisible flow of electrons flows from the cloud to the ground in a zig-zag pattern.

As it approaches the ground, positively charged particles are attracted upwards. It is this current, called the return stroke, that appears as a bright flash.