Catatumbo Lightning

Over 200 lightning strikes an hour can be seen in the Lake Maracaibo basin in Venezuela for up to 10 hours at a time. You can plan ahead for it up to a few months, and it happens more than a hundred times a year. It has been named Catatumbo lightning and as many as 448,000 lightning strikes are reported here every year. Because lightning strikes happen so often and are so accurate, they have been used as a sailing beacon for a long time.