Maracaibo Beacon. The Perpetual Storm In The Lightning Capital Of The World.

in #steemstem6 years ago (edited)

Admittedly, due to safety issues, I did not have the pleasure to be there personally but I have heard a lot about this place even before I appeared in Venezuela. The Catatumbo lightning is a meteorological phenomenon that has been recognized worldwide and its occurrence has been studied for many years.



The indigenous people and ancient ethnic groups had witnessed this phenomenon and had considered it a calling from the gods or offerings that the planet gave them to keep them safe. At present we recognize that the Catatumbo lightning is originated in the lower basin of the Catatumbo river and hence its name, to explain what this wonder of nature consists of we must begin by mentioning that this phenomenon is capable of happening more than 260 nights a year, which is a custom for the inhabitants of Zulia State in Venezuela, but for the eyes of tourists it is a spectacle of nature. Another important fact is, that these lightning flashes have many distances between them and are not as close as the human eye perceives, so it occurs in several places around Lake Maracaibo.


There is almost no fantastic stories or myths of terror to tell, but if there are tales that marked a precedent thanks to the illumination of these lightning bolts, many historians attest that these reports are true and here is a hint of each of these to further nourish this meteorological phenomenon.

One of them is the legend of the Bari tribe which goes back to several years ago, within the indigenous culture of Zulia, one can still hear the legend of Gabarra and Zulia. It tells the story that many years ago a Cacique called Cinera, chief of the tribe, who ruled a kingdom known now as Zulia, had a beautiful daughter bearing the same name as the State, Unfortunately, she was the only one among her sisters who had not been married.

Cínera asked the suitors for an offering to marry Zulia, it was then that Chimichagua, the father of Gabarra - one of the candidates, handed him a stone that shed flashes of magnificent light and offered it as a gift for the hand of his daughter. This beautiful and rare stone dazzled the father and the offer was accepted. On the day of marriage, Gabarra seized Zulia and the stone, they fled into the jungle, entering the shores of Lake Maracaibo far into its interior. Cínera seeing the treachery sent his best warriors to find and kill them, but they never succeeded. Nowadays one can see the flashes of light at night from the shore.

Another story favoured by all Zulia people shows how the Catatumbo lightning bolts are also known to protect the city of Maracaibo from Spanish invasions since colonial times. The first participation was in the year 1585 when the crew of Captain Francis Drake was in charge of directing an invasion directly to the city of Maracaibo to loot the area, and according to the story, it was one of the most illuminated by Catatumbo's lightning nights, thwarting the intentions of the Spaniards.

But this was not the only attempt of the Spaniards to invade Venezuela from the Lake of Maracaibo, during the war of independence in 1823 another fleet of Spaniards tried to perform the same Francis Drake manoeuvre, begging Heaven to help them stay in darkness, but wise nature protected its children by illuminating the skies even more with flashes that only historians can describe with the most dazzling details of their lyrics.


The lightning originates mainly in the Catatumbo river, hence its name, however, it is not the only place where this lightning strikes from the sky, scientists have determined that these lightning flashes have different directions at night and should be considered as several lightning phenomena and not one. Many meteorological references and encyclopaedias determine this phenomenon as Catatumbo lightning, but according to the Castilian language,​ it mentions more than one lightning bolt so one must consider​ here the plural form.

Main causes of these climatic phenomena are still a subject of debate among the meteorological societies. Around the year 2000 a theory was corroborated in which explained that gases cause these electric discharges. Because of the methane from the oilfield below, the air above Lake Maracaibo had increased conductivity. These investigations were carried out by the University of Carabobo, however, there is no scientific proof of that this is completely true.

For almost 2 decades of research,​ it has been noticed that the main reason are collisions between the hot and cold air currents and the ​region’s unique topography. During the nights the cold steam currents from the Andes Mountains descend to the basin of the Catatumbo river, there, clashing with hot Caribbean currents the thunderclouds are being formed. That’s where the party starts, in this vertically shaped cloud the segregation of negative and positive charges occur, creating a different voltage in its interior and below at the surface of the ground, here, the phenomenon that we know today as the Catatumbo lightning appears before our eyes. Actually every minute it’s about 28 lighting strikes, creating enough energy to power 100 million light bulbs.


Of course, when faced with a natural spectacle of such magnitude, one should think of all the studies, recognition and values, that scientists​ and institutions such as UNESCO can carry to provide an opportunity of recognizing and labelling​ this wonder of nature to humanity.

Some environmentalist dedicated their life acknowledging before the world the beauty of this phenomenon​. The recognition as a UNESCO world heritage site was achieved in 2005 when the Organization decided to mention the Juan Manuel Ciénagas National Park and the epicentre of lightning.


Another acknowledgement that cannot be overlooked is that of the Guinness World Records. Where the Catatumbo lightning phenomenon was assigned for having 250 lightning bolts per km2 per year - the highest per square kilometre. Winning over the Kifuka village in the South Kivu in the ​Democratic Republic of Congo became the new “Capital of Lightning”. This was dated in 2014 and its protagonist was Erik Quiroga.


References

Photos: @highonthehog

Images: sources linked below

  • Bürgesser, R. E.; Nicora, M. G.; Ávila, E. E. Characterization of the lightning activity of Relámpago del Catatumbo, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. 77: 241–247, 2012

  • Albrecht, R. I.; Goodman, S. J.; Buechler, D. E.; Blakeslee, R. J.; Christian, H. J. Where are the lightning hotspots on Earth?, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2016

  • Stock, M.J., D. Martínez Tong, Á.G. Muñoz, M. Stagg, R. Velásquez, Lightning Activity in Northwestern Venezuela, enviado a Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics, 2011

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/user-resources/sensing-our-planet/the-maracaibo-beacon

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-announce-worlds-new-lightning-hot-spot-180958994/

http://cmc.org.ve/portal/proyectos.php?proyecto=8

Sort:  

Upvoted on behalf of the @dropahead Curation Team!

Thanks for following the rules.

DISCLAIMER: dropahead Curation Team does not necessarily share opinions expressed in this article, but find author's effort and/or contribution deserves better reward and visibility.

Help us giving you bigger upvotes by:

Upvote this comment!
Upvote & Resteem the latest @dropahead's Curation Reports!
Join @dropahead's Rewards Pool (dRP)
(maximize your curation rewards!)
Delegate your witness vote to @dropahead
with SteemConnect
Follow @dropahead
Donate STEEM POWER to @dropahead
12.5SP, 25SP, 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP
Do the above and we'll have more STEEM POWER to give YOU bigger rewards next time!

Are you a curator? Join our team! v1
Releasing the power of dropahead's Rewards Pool (dRP)



This post has been voted on by the steemstem curation team and voting trail.

There is more to SteemSTEM than just writing posts, check here for some more tips on being a community member. You can also join our discord here to get to know the rest of the community!

Thank you :)

I've seen the Catatumbo lightnings. It is impressive.

Oh man lucky you, one day ....

wow, love you. I like it because you are talking about my beloved Maracaibo, and now i love you too haha. My blessings

Thanks :) next time I will visit.

There's so many places still I want to visit in South America, this is one of them :)

Macie rzut beterem 😉

Greetings! I am from Maracaibo, I visited the place several years ago and believe me, nothing compares with this phenomenon, in fact, one week ago I published a post El Relampago del Catatumbo.

Great, its a spectacular phenomenon that deserves more exposure. Cheers!

I invite you to my blog!:)

Nice post. I never heard about this before. :)

Was the explanaition for this lighting phenomenon obtained through experimental results or could they also explain it through a (computer) simulation?

In my humble understanding of the sources, both, but let me refer you to the university's source page and the ​CMC, which directly researches this phenomenon. I am doing this because I am not a specialist in meteorological phenomena, and although I did my great portion of homework, my knowledge will not be enough to explain any matter to mathematician.. ;>

http://cmc.org.ve/portal/proyectos.php?proyecto=8

the study of Doctor Ángel Muñoz http://www.azulambientalistas.org/Resumen-de-diversos-aspectos-estudiados-cientificamente-sobre-el-Relampago-del-Catatumbo.html

Okidoki. Thankies for the links

Posted using Partiko Android

Never visit these places.

like, its a warning to never go there or​, you mean you have never been there?

No ! Not a warning just I want to say I never go there.

Very very beautiful article

Posted using Partiko Android

Thank you :)

Wow... never heard of this place before.

Posted using Partiko iOS

glad to be of service :D

Nigeria, where I live in, currently have been experiencing lightening storms. May be that our topography is similar to that of the Maracaibo's, resulting to the air collisions here.

The gods here are the Amadioha and Sango and lightening is believed to be a sign of Justice.

Well, you guys are also near the equator in the green belt, the topography might be similar. Remember, Congo has some lightning storms too, actually the whole region if u look at the map above. So Amadioha and Sango have a lot of work now?​​

Hehe, don't mind those gods.

Hey! I'm from Venezuela, i'm never had the placer of meet Maracaibo. But thanks to you, i want to go! That history was really awesome.

Thanks for that information, i loved this post. A big hug from Venezuela!

HI @onestring nice to meet you. Well my boyfriend said we can't go there, it was simply not safe. But anyway i wanted to know as much as possible so i started my research and here is a result. Greetings from Munich !

congratulation your beautiful post is in trending...

Heh, thanks for reading. ;)

Hi @highonthehog!

Your post was upvoted by utopian.io in cooperation with steemstem - supporting knowledge, innovation and technological advancement on the Steem Blockchain.

Contribute to Open Source with utopian.io

Learn how to contribute on our website and join the new open source economy.

Want to chat? Join the Utopian Community on Discord https://discord.gg/h52nFrV

Thank you <3

Never heard about that It sounds something completely unique! Thanks for sharing

another cool curiosity :)