October 12th and 13th : 11 sprites over the Mediterranean Sea.

October the 12th, a thunderstorm system was active at the end of the day over the Mediterranean Sea.



I decided to operate during the night controlling the Pic du Midi system from Copenhagen. I found the cameras covered by snow and the observing conditions cloudy.

Thanks to heaters in the camera housing the snow melted down and the glass cleared up. Although the cameras system became quickly fully operational, the view was still blocked by clouds ...

I let the camera pointed over the Mediterranean Sea with the automatic triggering system running and I went to bed. This was fortunate, the cameras recorded 7 sprites during the night between 01:24 UT and 03:52.


The first sprite occurred during a strong lightning activity as seen on the following lightning map ( the biggest red cross represents the lightning associated with the sprite )

The sprite as seen by the both wide and narrow field of view cameras:





Other sprites caught this night :

Sprites at 02:12 UT and 02:23 UT :





Sprite at 03:44 UT :





Sprite at 03:52 UT :





October the 13th, the thunderstorm was still active and during the beginning of the night, it kept producing sprites close to the Balearic Islands although it was much weaker ... It finally died at around 00:00 UT.





Here, 2 sprites from the 4 caught this night :

Sprite at 22:17 UT :





Sprite at 23:07 UT :





Did this storm produce sprites during the day ?