Lake Maracaibo is famous for Catatumbo lightning, the intense lightning shows that appear nearly every night. Lake Victoria, on the other hand, is infamous for drowning unfortunate fishermen. There is one phenomenon behind this—one bizarre trick of the atmosphere that is played directly over tropical lakes, and in deep tropical valleys.


Image Sources:
Wikipedia Commons (Theo Matandura, Fernando Flores, Ruzhugo27, Diego Delso, Ministry of Defense in Brazil,
Formulanone (Flickr)
NASA Earth Observatory


Information Sources:

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Lightning Over Three Large Tropical Lakes and the Strait of Malacca: Exploratory Analyses. September 2017Monthly Weather Review 145(11)

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Codazzi Agustín, Resumen de la Geografía de Venezuela, Fournier, Paris, 1841, pp. 20, 464 y 466.

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