Catatumbo lightning has occurred at least as far back as the beginning of European colonization where the Catatumbo River empties into the lake.

Not a single bolt has struck the area since late January, which can receive up to 20,000 bolts in a single night.

The electrical discharges normally occur approximately 160 nights per year and around 10 hours per day.

“This is unprecedented. In recorded history we have not had such a long stretch without lightning,” Catatumbo lightning expert Erik Quiroga told the UK’s The Guardian newspaper.

Meteorologists point to the current El Niño phenomenon for both the lack of lightning and for a severe drought that has plagued Venezuela in recent months.

Fishermen on the lake say they miss the lightning because it guides them like a lighthouse at night.

It’s believed the lightning is normally triggered by ionized gas, such as methane, rising high into the atmosphere from the petroleum-rich lake and marshland, gathering an intense electrical charge during the ascent.

The nearly continuous discharges of lightning that result over Maracaibo are believed to be the world’s largest single generators of tropospheric ozone. (The “ozone layer” that protects Earth’s surface from ultraviolet radiation is located in the much higher stratosphere.)

Similar intense lightning occurs in neighboring Colombia, Indonesia and Uganda but does not typically last the entire night.

Photo: File