Sprites about the storm clouds that were over Buenos Aires Province | GABRIEL ZAPAROLLI
On the night from Saturday to Sunday over the province of Buenos Aires, sprites were rarely seen above extremely strong storm clouds, which moved through the region with violent storms with gusts of over 100 km/h.
Fourteen people died in the storms in Buenos Aires province. The storms claimed 13 lives in Bahia Blanca in southern Buenos Aires province and one death in Moreno in the Argentine capital's metropolitan area. As the storms crossed the Rio Plata and reached Uruguay, they claimed two more lives in Colonia.
A special METAR weather report from Bahia Blanca Airport reported wind gusts of 146 km/h at 7:34 p.m. Saturday, but a private automated station reported gusts of 180 km/h. In the cities of Buenos Aires and the greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area, wind gusts reached 132 km/h in San Fernando, 124 km/h in El Palomar, 111 km/h in Morón, 100 km/h in Villa Ortuzar and 97 km/h in Aeroparque .
Wind gusts in Uruguay on Sunday reached 167 km/h in Colonia, 106 km/h in San Jacinto, 105 km/h in Mercedes, 102 km/h in San José, 99 km/h in Montevideo (Melilla) and 94 in Durazno km/h in Young, 93 km/h in Florida and Tacuarembó, 87 km/h in Atlântida, 85 km/h in Salto, 84 km/h in Punta del Este and Lavalleja, 83 km/h in Paso de los Toros, and 81 km/h in Laguna del Sauce.
The Sprite recordings were created by a team of meteorology enthusiasts and storm chasers who were in Uruguay and used special cameras to record the distant storms that dominated Buenos Aires province, across the Plate River. The images are some of the most incredible yet captured of this type of phenomenon in South America.
GABRIEL ZAPAROLLI
GABRIEL ZAPAROLLI
Sprites are one of the most unusual and rare forms of atmospheric discharge that can be observed. Discovered near Taiwan and Puerto Rico in 2001 and 2002, the gigantic glowing beams are sometimes called “Earth's tallest lightning bolt” because they strike the ionosphere from over 80 kilometers above sea level.
Although they have been observed in storms over land, there have also been many recordings in storms over the sea. “They (sprites) seem to love storms over the water and are famous for surprising passengers aboard commercial aircraft,” describes NASA scientist Tony Phillips.
In 2017 and 2018, lightning scientist Oscar van der Velde of the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya installed highspeed cameras on Colombia's northern coast to conduct research to capture giant jets.
In three months of observation he managed to catch only twelve. “Frankie photographed a rare giant jet with a 'carrot' morphology, first reported in a study published in Nature by Su et al. (2003),” notes van der Velde.
“The other most common jet type has a 'tree' morphology.” Carrot jets are characterized by their inner spheres, which are glowing balls of light hundreds of meters in diameter. Lucena recorded dozens of them lighting up in the middle of the jet.
The formation process and structure of these atmospheric discharges are not yet fully understood by science, so rare is the phenomenon. “It could be intersecting plasma flows within the jet or areas of greater heating,” says the atmospheric discharge researcher from the University of Catalonia. “We don’t know,” says van der Velde.
Although sprites have been reported for at least a century, many scientists did not believe in their existence until 1989, when researchers at the University of Minnesota accidentally photographed sprites and confirmed them through video cameras aboard NASA's space shuttle.
The sprites are Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), atmospheric phenomena observed above storm clouds at altitudes between 18 and 100 kilometers and are associated with nearelectrostatic electric fields generated by lightning.
The underlying physics of sprites is not yet fully understood by scientists. Some models claim that cosmic rays contribute to their occurrence, creating conductive paths in the atmosphere. Subatomic particles from space would reach the surface of Earth's atmosphere and produce secondary electrons that would propel the beams upward. If this is true, goblins could multiply more and more as cosmic rays increase.
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