By: Chloe Kwon

In 2022, A volcano in the South Pacific nation of Tonga made history when it erupted, blasting enough ash and smoke to reach space! It also launched a Tsunami which was as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

The eruption caused flashing lightning bolts 20 to 30 kilometers high, around 12 to 19 miles above sea level, reaching the stratosphere. That’s more than how airplanes usually fly!

Lightning often forms in thunder clouds, but they can form in volcano plumes too. When bits of ash, gas and rocks bump into each other, and create static electricity, once the electricity builds up, it creates zips of lighting flashing through the clouds.

Alexa Van Eaton led a team that looked at how high the Tonga eruption’s lightning was. She’s a volcano scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington.

To estimate the lightning’s height, Van Eaton’s team looked at different types of data. One of the data sets was from the radio waves the lightning gave off. They also observed satellite images of the eruption plume, and infrared light.

These data sets revealed the lightning started more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) above sea level. Lightning doesn’t typically start that high. Air pressure at that height is usually too low to form lightning “leaders.” These are the channels of hot plasma that make up the lightning in thunderstorms.