Very intense lightning activity occurs continuously in Africa. Local thunderstorms appear in the afternoon and disappear shortly after sunset, unless they develop into larger storm clusters, called mesoscale convective systems, which can be larger than 1000 km, and can stay active throughout the day and night.

Most of the lightning activity in the animation is seen to the north of equator as its main trigger, the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), moves northwards during the Northern Hemisphere summer. The direction of movement of clouds and storms in the southern part of the ITCZ is east to west, as opposed to the typical mid-latitude west to east airflow that can be seen in the storms in the upper right-hand corner.

This animation was made using five days’ worth of data from the Meteosat Third Generation Lightning Imager’s east camera, from 00:00 UTC 2 June to 23:59 UTC 6 June 2023. It was made from raw preliminary data and is not for operational use.

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