Talk about fire in the sky!
A spectacular burst of red sprites engulfed the sky over the English Channel on May 29, 2017.
I have already reported about the powerful storm on May 28, 2017 that swept across the English Channel, producing more than 120,000 lightnings in less than 12 hours. Well during this night, the activity above the thunderclouds was also immense ABOVE the thunderclouds and accompanied by a massive burst of red sprites as shown in these pictures by Stephane Vetter. Now you can really talk about fire in the sky!
Sprites are large-scale electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorm clouds, giving rise to a quite varied range of visual shapes flickering in the night sky. Sprites appear as luminous reddish-orange flashes. They often occur in clusters within atmosphere above the troposphere at an altitude range of 50–90 km (31–56 mi). Sprites are cold plasma phenomena that lack the hot channel temperatures of tropospheric lightning.
