Hurricane Lee’s Furious Lightning Illuminates the Sky in Incredible Video

Lisa Marie Segarra

A new video uploaded to Twitter Friday shows a stunning lightning show on display in the eye of Hurricane Lee.

The video, which appears to have been recorded on Thursday, September 7, shows lightning brightening the entire miles-wide eye of the storm. Through flashes, the circular wall of clouds is seen brightly lit up for fractions of a moment at a time. In the mere seconds of light, the clouds can be seen slowly spinning. The Twitter user, @FlynonymousWX, said the video was shot in real-time rather than a timelapse, which demonstrates just how quick the lighting kept striking.

The user’s account says they are a hurricane hunter who took these images from an aircraft. They used a Canon EOS R5 with a 16mm f/2.8 lens.

The account shared more images documenting the incredible storm tracking from various angles.

Hurricane Lee is a category 4 storm at the time of this writing. By Friday morning, when the video was posted, it was making its way through the Caribbean, the New York Times reports. It is expected to steer clear of land, for now, though there is still a possibility of Hurricane Lee hitting the eastern seaboards of the United States and Canada or Bermuda.

The storm is incredibly strong, having reached Category 5 before deescalating back to 4. There have only been 40 Category 4 storms in the Atlantic since 1924, CNN reports.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warns that Lee is expected to remain a powerful hurricane through early next week and may lead to dangerous beach conditions around the East Coast. Dangerous surf and life-threatening rip current are likely in the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Turks and Caicos, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The same dangerous conditions are expected along most of the East Coast starting Sunday. Forecast models expect Hurricane Lee to move north, though when and where that shift happens will drastically change the storm’s threat to the U.S., as the NYT points out. The coming week will shed more light on the path of the hurricane as it keeps moving.

Image credits: U.S. Air Force 403rd Wing Public Affairs

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