Incredible photos show more than 50 forks of lighting striking a city in five minutes during a storm dubbed ‘The Night of a Thousand Forks’.
The electrical storm raged in the skies above Mexico, with one photographer rushing out to try to record it on camera.
One panoramic shot shows how the whole sky lit up as the forks of lighting struck at different points along a valley.
In another shot lightning can be seen cracking over the 12,000ft high Colima Volcano – the most active volcano in Mexico.
Photographer Hernando Rivera Cervantes, 37, from Colima, said it was a ‘crazy night’ with the loud storm keeping the city awake.
He said: “The night was crazy, all the locals are calling it the Night of a Thousand Forks.
“It kept everybody awake all night, and there was lots of rain too. The sound was enough to keep the whole city awake.
“Over five minutes I captured about 40-50 lightning bolts – which was incredible.
“I have been fascinated by lightning since I was a child, it has always impressed me with its great energy and light.”
The talented photographer stitched together 42 of his photos to make one image showing the full force of the storm.
Last month, UK-based photographers were able to get some equally impressive photos after capturing lightning and rainbows at the same time.
One such snapper was Chris Fletcher, who said he ‘just happened to be in the right place at the right time on the outskirts of Birmingham’, before adding: “No-one would ever believe this was taken near Birmingham.”
Meanwhile, amateur photographer Ben Cartwright told LADbible: “It was taken a mile away from Dudley – home of Duncan Edwards and Lenny Henry – from my back garden.
“I was chatting to my neighbour over the fence and spotted one rainbow, then another started to form.
“We could hear the thunder, then saw the lightning appearing near to the rainbow, so I put my phone on live view and kept snapping away every second.
“Managed to go through the live view photo frames until I saw the lightning, had to darken the image a little, voila.”
