Africa is experiencing bigger and more frequent thunderstorms as global temperatures rise, according to researchers at Tel Aviv University.

The continent already has many of the world’s lightning hot spots, with storms that can be extremely destructive and, sometimes, deadly. This month, for example, a conservation group reported that four rare mountain gorillas had been electrocuted by lightning in Mgahinga National Park, Uganda. In a calamitous episode in 2011, a lightning strike on an elementary school in the same country killed 20 children and injured nearly 100.

Mass casualties like that are rare. But meteorologists wondered at the time whether thunderstorms were becoming more common in Africa in the era of climate change.

The answer, according to the new research, published in January in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate, is yes. An increase in temperatures in Africa over the past seven decades correlates with bigger and more frequent thunderstorms, the researchers found.