Dear Tom,
While watching the morning news on Sept. 1 regarding Hurricane Gustav as it was
making landfall, the videos showed a complete lack of lightning. Was this trick
photography?
Peter Gottstein
Dear Peter,
There were no tricks. Despite widespread belief to the contrary, hurricanes are
notoriously lacking in lightning. Hurricane Gustav, like most hurricanes, contained very
little of it. What lightning there was occurred not in the storm's warm and violent
interior but in its cooler outlying rain bands.
Dr. John Hallett, Director of the Ice Physics Laboratory at the Desert Research Institute
in Reno, Nevada, explains that electrification of clouds requires the presence of large
numbers of ice particles held aloft by violent updrafts. Hurricanes, though, are warm
systems usually lacking in the powerful localized updrafts found in "standard"
thunderstorms. As a result, lightning production in hurricanes is minimal.
