What a multitude of wonderful places on our planet! Such a place that makes you admire is the Venezuelan Lake Maracaibo, one of the oldest on our Earth and the largest in South America(13210 sq. km). On the shores of the lake and the Gulf of Venezuela, of which it is a continuation, about a quarter of the country’s total population lives and the city of the same name, Maracaibo, the 2nd largest in Venezuela, is located.
Exist different versions origin of the name "Maracaibo". According to one of them, in one of the battles with the colonialists in the 16th century. the bullet hit the leader (cacique) of the Motilon Mara Indians, and the Indians shouted “Mara kayo!” (“Mara has fallen!”). Another version says that the lake owes its name to the nearby swamps of Maara-Ivo - “Snake Place”.
In ancient times, pirate camps were located near Lake Maracaibo.
Today, numerous Indian tribes live near the lake. On the shores of the Sinamaiko Lagoon live the Anu Indians, who, according to their customs, build houses, churches, and schools right on the water, on high wooden stilts. Very colorful fearless warriors, - Guajiro and Parauhano Indians! Women in colorful, spacious, long clothes, men in wide shirts with an abundance of beads, with which their wives decorated the outfits of their life partners.
A souvenir that you can bring from Lake Maracaibo is white napkins crocheted by Indian craftsmen, decorated with the “Sun of Maracaibo” pattern.
The lake is amazingly picturesque! Exotic vegetation, different kinds animals and birds National Park Chienagas del Catatumbo National park on the southwestern shore of the lake delights all tourists who visit it. Howler monkeys live in the rainforest.
In the vicinity of the lake there are plantations of cocoa and sugar cane trees.
At the confluence of the Catatumbo River and Lake Maracaibo, 140 - 160 days a year, in bad weather, and at other times - 7-10 hours daily - you can observe unique phenomenon nature, - flashing lightning. It can last up to 10 hours a day, approximately 300 times per hour. The Wayuu Indians say that these are the souls of the departed.
These lightning bolts are the world's largest producers of ozone, passing through clouds without thunder and rarely reaching the ground. For centuries, they served as a kind of guiding star for ships (Maracaibo Lighthouse), which is visible at a distance of four hundred kilometers. Indigenous people is proud of its lightning, they are depicted on the flag and coat of arms of the state of Zulia, and even in the anthem of Venezuela there is a mention of this amazing phenomenon.
Houses have been built for tourists in Maracaibo. Nothing could be more romantic - at night, lying in a hammock on fresh air, admire the flashes of lightning... Insanely beautiful! 
Quite rare a natural phenomenon, is not it? But no, well, at least not for Venezuelans living near Lake Maracaibo, where lightning can be seen almost every night.
This phenomenon is called. You can observe it at the confluence of the Catatumbo River (hence the name) into Lake Maracaibo. Lightning appears here every second night - 140-160 once a year and sparkle throughout the night - about 10 hours. As a result, in a year it turns out to be about 1.5 million discharges.
Another feature of Catatumbo lightning is that discharges are formed at an altitude of 4-5 km and extremely rarely reach the ground, and even lightning does not not accompanied sound effects, i.e. thunder.
Scientists cannot name the exact cause of such an unusual phenomenon to this day; there are only a few hypotheses and assumptions. The most popular hypothesis sees the reason for this phenomenon as follows: in the swamps washed by the Catatumbo River, a large amount of ionized methane(from the decomposition of organic matter), which then, together with the steam, turns into clouds and rises above the lake. These clouds encounter strong cold air currents constantly blowing from the Andes, which can serve as a kind of catalyst.
Catatumbo lightning can be seen from a distance 400 km from Lake Maracaibo, which is probably why sailors have been using this phenomenon as a means of navigation for many centuries. By the way, this phenomenon is better known to sea wolves as.
In addition to entertainment and simply its unusualness, incessant lightning brings beneficial effect for the whole planet. As is known, after a lightning discharge in the atmosphere, ozone(extremely important element protective system Earth, ozone layer protects all living things from ultraviolet radiation from the Sun). Now imagine the ozone released here, because the lightning here practically never stops, the Catatumbo lightning is the most major source ozone on .
Catatumbo Lightning- this is a unique natural phenomenon that has no analogues anywhere else in the world. Therefore, if you ever find yourself in Venezuela, be sure to try this place.
Our world seems familiar to us, studied far and wide, open and long ago explained. The man is eager to deep space, but sometimes nature throws up curious riddles for the “fedigious”. Miracles of heaven and earth, phenomena that we have heard about more than once, but even with the entire powerful arsenal available modern science, some of the mysteries of nature, humanity is not able to explain.
There is a place on earth where lightning strikes every day for hundreds of years. This place is called “Catatumbo Lightning” (Spanish Relámpago del Catatumbo) and it is located in Venezuela, above the confluence of the Catatumbo River into Lake Maracaibo, in the north-west of the country. Lake Maracaibo is considered the largest in South America. The area of this lake is 13,210 square kilometers.
In addition, it is one of the oldest lakes on our planet (some experts believe that it is the second oldest). Lives on the shores of Maracaibo most of population of Venezuela. And the wealth that this lake possesses allows Venezuela to live in prosperity.
At night, high in the sky above the Catatumbo Valley, glows flash with minimal intervals of a couple of seconds, at an altitude of five to ten (!) kilometers, without accompanying acoustic effects. There is no rain, and thunder strikes are not heard precisely because lightning flashes at a great height. Lightning mostly travels from cloud to cloud and rarely reaches the ground. The charges have a force of over 400,000 amperes each. This adds up to about 1.2 million discharges per year.
Lightning is so powerful that it can be seen at a distance of several hundred kilometers. They last for 10 hours and occur approximately 280 times per hour. Lightning illuminates the vast surrounding area until the morning. In the old days, sailors called this amazing natural phenomenon the “Maracaibo Lighthouse” (Faro de Maracaibo), since continuous lightning strikes can be seen at a distance of 400 kilometers. Often the phenomenon of Catatumbo is seen even by residents of the island of Aruba, which is located five hundred kilometers from their epicenter.
According to NASA observations, 100 electrical discharges occur every second on the planet, of which 1% occur in Catatumbo, whose average number of discharges per second is more than one.
Legends and eyewitness accounts
The peoples who had long inhabited Venezuela already knew about this phenomenon. In the language of the Wari Indians who have lived in these places since ancient times, Catatumbo means “god of thunder.” From time immemorial, the Wari Indians consider Catatumbo lightning to be a huge gathering of fireflies that gather together to honor the gods who created the Universe with their light.
In turn, the Yukpas Indians are confident that lightning is nothing more than the souls of dead people. The Wayuu (a group of Venezuelan Indians) claim that it represents the spirit of those killed in battle and a message from the eternal sunshine on high.
First written mention this unusual phenomenon was introduced to the general public of the Old World by the epic poem “La Dragontea”, 1598, written by Lope de Vega, who is considered key figure Spanish literature of the golden age of the Baroque. This poem is dedicated to the hated Spanish king Philip II to a pirate in the service of the British crown, Sir Francis Drake.
The surname Drake is consonant with the word dragon, which de Vega took advantage of, paying tribute to the military talent and courage of the vice admiral in his work. According to the legends of the corsairs, lightning over Catatumbo, habitually illuminating the impenetrable blackness of the tropical sky, foiled in 1595 Drake, who was unfamiliar with this phenomenon, a plan for an unexpected assault on the city of Morocaibo under the cover of darkness.
On July 24, 1823, lightning helped again. This time, lightning illuminated the ships of José Padilla Prudencio, who commanded the Spanish fleet during the Venezuelan War of Independence. His attack was not unexpected, so the Spanish admiral was defeated. The outcome of this battle influenced the course of the entire war. People living in the state of Zulia still remember the role the natural lighthouse played in their destiny, so the image of lightning is even present on the coat of arms and flag of this district, and lightning is also mentioned in its anthem.
Study of the phenomenon
The mystery that revolves around Catatumbo has turned it into one of the world's most extraordinary and beautiful natural phenomena, and a scientific feast. Scientists cannot give an exact answer to the question of when the Catatumbo lightning appeared. They explain such an incredible number of lightning strikes by a unique combination natural factors. As a result of almost continuous lightning strikes for 140-160 nights a year, Catatumbo is called a natural ozone factory; myriads of lightning discharges up to 10% of the Earth's total ozone into the atmosphere.
Catatumbo lightning is believed to be the largest single generator of tropospheric ozone on Earth. The storm never changes its position. People living in this area observe it constantly in the same manifestation. Typically, Catatumbo lightning develops within the coordinates of 8 degrees 30" and 9 degrees 45" northern latitude, 71 degrees and 73 degrees west longitude, despite the fact that it covers a wide area, naturally, not all of it has the same thunderstorm activity.
The atmospheric phenomenon interested European researchers soon after the Spaniards appeared on the lake. However, naturally, the learned minds of the Middle Ages could not explain it. Catatumbo lightning was first studied in detail by the Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.
In fundamental scientific work“Voyage aux regions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait en 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804 par Alexander Humboldt et Aime Bonpland” he described this unusual phenomenon as "electric flashes resembling a phosphorescent glow."
The phenomenon also interested the Italian geographer Agustin Cadazzi, who described it as “lightning emerging from the depths of the river.” In 1911, Melchor Bravo Centeno proposed a hypothesis that the key to the phenomenon lay in the interaction of the unique local topography, wind and heat.
Later, scientists studied the mechanism of the occurrence of Catatumbo lightning in more detail, however, so far no one has refuted the version proposed by Centeno, but many, relying on it, are still conducting their research.
In the second half of the 20th century, Venezuelan scientist of Russian origin Andrei Zavrotsky, Researcher The University of the Andes in Merida (Universidad de Los Andes, Merida) organized three expeditions to Lake Maracaibo between 1966 and 1970. They discovered that lightning appears from three epicenters - the swamps of the Juan Manuel de Juan Manuel National Park, in Claras Aguas Negras and in a place west of the lake.
In 1991 they were included in the Cienagas del Catatumbo National Wetland Park. At that time, many believed that lightning was caused by the evaporation of oil, but Zavrotsky refuted this version, because in two of the three places he designated as epicenters, there was no “black gold”. But it led to the assumption that lightning is caused by the uranium content in the swamps.
According to statistics, the Catatumbo Delta is inferior in the number of thunderstorm days to such places as the Ugandan Tororo (251 days) or the Indonesian city of Bogor on the island of Java (Bogor, Java) (about 223 days, and in the period 1916-1919 an absolute record 322 days). However, it surpasses them in the quality of celestial illumination, since in these areas even the longest thunderstorms rarely last more than one to two hours.
During the expedition undertaken by scientist Nelson Falcon, another theory was put forward. The Catatumbo River passes through very large swamps, washing away organic materials, which, when decomposing, release huge clouds of ionized methane. The Andes mountain range, located next to Lake Maracaibo, up to 5 kilometers high, blocks the winds and thanks to this, the abundant evaporation of methane from the surface of the lake forms huge clouds that stretch upward, feeding lightning discharges. It sounds quite plausible, although this version also has weaknesses.
The fact is that the content of methane in the atmosphere above Maracaibo is not so high, and there are places in the world where there is much more of this substance in the air, but such a natural phenomenon does not occur there. In a word, scientists have not yet been able to completely solve the mystery of Catatumbo lightning, but research continues today. At the beginning of the 2000s, the same Nelson Falcon developed computer model microphysics of Catatumbo lightning, which confirmed that one of the reasons for their occurrence is methane released by swamps and oil fields.
Tourism object
Catatumbo lightning is a unique natural phenomenon, stunning with its beauty everyone who has ever seen it. Of course, the strongest impression from lightning can be obtained in the dark. The flares look especially impressive in the night sky. And it should be noted that nature seems to know at what time the lightning will look best - a thunderstorm tends to begin immediately after sunset.
It is interesting that lightning is often brought by a cloud descending from nearby mountains, while the rest of the sky is clear. In this case, the lightning flashes are very clear and bright. Often electrical discharges not only cut through the sky, but also hit the surface of the lake; in addition, due to special substances in the air, they turn orange and red. This spectacle is amazing, it’s not for nothing that thousands of tourists come to Lake Maracaibo from different corners peace.
The Catatumbo Lightning is not yet a well-known tourist attraction in Venezuela, but its popularity is gradually increasing. Enterprising tour operators mainly organize excursions to watch the celestial spectacle from the city of Merida.
The first part of the journey involves an approximately three-hour train ride to the fishing village of Puerto-Concha. If you wish, on the way you can visit the picturesque La Palmita waterfall (Cascada La Palmita) and the Guajaro karst cave (Cueva del Guacharo), where nocturnal Guajaro birds live among the bizarre shape of stalactites and stalagmites.
From the village of Puerto Concha, local guides organize an unforgettable river trip through a tropical forest Catatumbo to the Indian villages of Ologa and Congo-Mirador, located on stilts in the middle of the water.
The last village is considered best place to observe the bright flashes in the night sky that appear in the bay, in a pile village located in the municipality of Catatumbo in the southern part of Lake Maracaibo.
Catatumbo today
It is noteworthy that back in the middle of the last century, Catatumbo lightning illuminated the sky almost every night. Why the frequency of their occurrence has decreased is unknown. But today this natural phenomenon can be observed every day only from June to October. The rest of the time the probability of admiring such unique thunderstorm not that high.
Nowadays, thunderstorms occur in this area up to 160 days a year, and according to recollections local residents, before there were even more of them.
On September 27, 2005, the atmospheric phenomenon was declared natural heritage Department of Zulia.
The most ardent admirers of heavenly fireworks led by the famous Venezuelan defender environment Erik Quiroga is even trying to get him on the list world heritage UNESCO (UNESCO World Heritage).
At one time, Eric Quiroga was one of the initiators of the proclamation of the UN General Assembly in 1994 International Day protection of the ozone layer, which is celebrated annually on September 16th. He also convinces the general public that lightning, which strikes the Catatumbo Delta 1.2–1.6 million times a year, is one of the main sources of the formation of the protective ozone layer.
But in this case, Quiroga is wishful thinking. Lightning in this area actually generates ozone in large quantities, but it is localized in the troposphere, without reaching the protective ozone layer concentrated much higher in the stratosphere.
In my attempts to attract as much as possible more attention to that natural phenomenon, Eric Quiroga raised the alarm in 2010, notifying the press that the Catatumbo delta was suddenly in darkness for six weeks from January to March, and this was the second “switching off” of the Marocaibo lighthouse in more than a century.
The first, according to him, happened in 1906, after an earthquake caused by a tsunami with an amplitude of 8.8 points, and lasted three weeks. Quiroga attributes the latest break to the drought in Venezuela caused by the El Niño effect.
Professor Angel Munoz, who heads the lightning research team at the Center for Scientific Modeling at the University of Zulia (Centro de Modelado Cientifico La Universidad del Zulia), argues that although Eric Quiroga has done a lot to popularize Catatumbo lightning, it should still be recognized that thunderstorms activity in the area ceases quite regularly during the dry period of January and February. The Marocaibo lighthouse is not going to go out.
Don't be surprised by the name. In this article we decided to combine two attractions into one. By and large, Lake Maracaibo and Catatumbo Lightning can be considered separate attractions, but it would still be more correct to talk about them together. For believe me, one is inseparable from the other. If you are not lazy and read the article to the end, you will find out why.
Let's start with Lake Maracaibo. Exactly this big lake throughout South America. It is located in the northwest of the country in the state of Zulia, in the north of the continent.
By calling this attraction a lake, we are deceiving you a little. In fact, it is not a lake, but a sea bay in the Gulf of Venezuela. It looks like a bay within a bay or a sea lagoon. Despite this, in the world this place is still called a lake. Just below you can see what Lake Maracaibo looks like on the map.
Lake Maracaibo on the map
- Geographic coordinates 9.819284, -71.583125
- The distance from the capital of Venezuela, Caracas, is about 520 km in a straight line.
- from the nearest airport La Chinita, located right in the city of Maracaibo 12 km to the lake shore
- The nearest Arturo Michelena International Airport is 400 km to the east.
The lake is located between two mountain ranges. In the west it is the Sierra de Perija, and in the southeast it is the Cordillera de Merida. The depression in which the lake is located is considered by some scientists to be a simple bend tectonic plate, and others are the result of a meteorite fall.
This lake is not only the largest in South America, but also one of the oldest in the world. To be more precise, it is the second oldest after Baikal. But there are discrepancies here, the geology is not entirely exact science– for her, plus/minus a million years is a normal statistical error. The age of Baikal is approximately 25-35 million years, and Maracaibo is 20-36 million years old. As you can see, the error here is already tens of millions of years. So it’s not entirely clear which lake is older. But we, nevertheless, will give the palm in age to our native Baikal (this is just our subjective opinion).
Lake Maracaibo in numbers
- Length about 159 km
- Width up to 108 km
- Surface area 13210 km2
- Maximum depth 60 meters (some sources indicate a depth of 250-260 meters, but we did not find reliable information on this matter)
- The volume of water in the lake is about 280 km3
- The lake communicates with the Gulf of Venezuela through a shallow (2-4 meters deep) strait about 5.5 kilometers wide.
The water in the lake is salty, but the salt level is much lower than in the Gulf of Venezuela. This is because many streams and rivers flow into Maracaibo. The largest of them is the Catatumbo River, which flows into the lake in the southwestern part. (That’s part of the name of the second attraction, but bear with us, we’ll get to the lightning a little later).
Theories for the origin of the name of the lake
There are two main versions of the name of the lake, and both are associated with the leader of a local tribe named Mara. According to one of them, Maracaibo is translated as “land of Mara,” since “kaibo” in local language means "earth". According to another, the name was transformed from the exclamation “Mara kayo!”, which means Mara has fallen or Mara has been killed. At the beginning of the 16th century, a war was waged between local Indians and the Spanish conquerors and during a fierce battle the leader was killed, but his name lives on for centuries. Although, according to some sources, there is another version according to which the name Maracaibo arose from the swamps surrounding it, called by the Indians “maara ivo” - a place of snakes.
Discovery of Lake Maracaibo by Europeans
The first European to discover the lake was Alonso de Ojeda. In 1499, during the Age of the Great Geographical Discoveries, Ojeda's ship entered the lake, and Alonso was very amazed at the sight of the houses of the local residents. The houses were built on stilts directly above the lake and connected to each other and to the shore by wooden decks. This reminded the European of Venice, and he exclaimed “Oh, Veneziolla!”, which means “Oh, little Venice!” It is believed that this is where the name of the country we now call Venezuela came from.
30 years after Europeans visited the lake on its west bank a port of the same name was founded. At the beginning of the 20th century, huge reserves of oil were discovered in the lake, production of which began in 1914. Cities on the shores of the lake began to develop rapidly, and now a quarter of the country's population lives on the coast of Maracaibo.
Rafael Urdaneta Bridge
In 1962, a bridge was built across the strait, named after General Rafael Urdaneta. The bridge, by the way, can easily be included in the world’s landmarks, because it is one of the longest in the world. Its length is 8700 m. In its central part there are 5 spans, each 235 meters long. In order to big ships were able to enter the lake, were carried out special work by deepening the bottom, as a result of which the depth in the fairway increased to 14 meters.
There is another, perhaps the greatest and mystical feature of Lake Maracaibo, its famous and difficult to explain lightning (here we get to the second attraction). This natural phenomenon is called the “Catatumbo Lightning” and is a magnificent and almost continuous lightning that occurs at an altitude of about 5 kilometers above the confluence of the Catatumbo River into the lake.
Did you see the thunderstorm? We definitely saw it. So you can safely multiply by 100, or even 1000, the number of lightning strikes that you saw. The fact is that lightning at the mouth of the Catatumbo River appears at night for about 160 days a year and about 10 hours a day. That is, for almost six months, every night you can watch this unforgettable fireworks display. On average, lightning strikes about 300 times within an hour. Someone even calculated that lightning appears about 1,200,000 times during the year.
The miracles don't end there. Catatumbo lightning is not accompanied by thunder, so you won’t hear much noise. The discharges appearing in the sky are not the most common, since most of them do not reach the ground, that is, bright zigzags cut the sky in completely unpredictable directions. And all this happens as scheduled, usually after midnight.
The light of these lightning bolts is visible from 400 kilometers away, which is why they are also called the “Catatumbo Lighthouse”. And their glow is so bright that it once even saved the city of Maracaibo from attack famous pirate Francis Drake. In 1595, he attempted to capture the city at night, but Catatumbo's lightning thwarted a sly plan, illuminating his team and allowing the city's residents to repel the attack.
Catatumbo lightning plays very important role and for the entire planet. Have you smelled ozone after a thunderstorm? Now imagine how much ozone is produced in this place. As much as 10%, so to speak, of ozone “production” occurs at the Catatumbo “factory”.
Theories of the origin of Catatumbo Lightning
Local Indians believed that lightning occurs when fireflies collide with the souls of deceased ancestors. But scientists think differently and put forward a number of their own versions.
- Warm and humid air masses from the Caribbean Sea (which includes the Gulf of Venezuela) meet cold currents from the Andes Mountains. As a result, vortices are formed, which contribute to the electrification of the air and the appearance of lightning.
- The surrounding area is very swampy. Swamps emit methane, which rises upward in an upward flow. The gas distribution does not always occur evenly, and the concentration of ions in the air contributes to the ignition of the gas and the formation of electrical breakdown
- Some scientists suggest that the culprit is uranium, which is abundant in swamps and enters the atmosphere.
In any case, researchers cannot yet agree on this issue.
This amazing and magical phenomenon invariably attracts a lot of tourists here.
I would like to note that there are many interesting natural phenomena on our planet. In particular, it is worth paying attention to the Gulf of Carpentaria and its famous and inexplicable Morning Glory clouds.
Interesting facts about Lake Maracaibo and Catatumbo Lightning
Lake Maracaibo and Catatumbo Lightning in the photo
Thunderstorms, despite all their danger and unpredictability, are fascinating. It is preferable to take shelter from a thunderstorm. But what if thunderstorms do not stop and rage for 150 days a year, and the number of lightning strikes exceeds a million per year? And all this in one place. There is such a place on our planet, and it is located in the vicinity of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela.
The only place on our planet where the intensity of lightning is simply fantastic. An amazing and rare phenomenon in its scope. Hundreds of lightning lights up the night sky in the vicinity of Lake Maracaibo almost 150 days a year, for 10-12 hours every day. This phenomenon is also interesting because lightning discharges They don’t irritate the locals at all, they are silent.
The surrounding area of Lake Maracaibo is the largest ozone generator on the planet.
But this does not mean that this is an ordinary light show. The most powerful discharges, power of hundreds of thousands of amperes are visible at a distance of up to 400 kilometers. And since these thunderstorms occur almost constantly, in one place they were nicknamed the Maracaibo Lighthouse, and are even often used for shipping navigation.
Source of constant thunderstorms.
Lightning occurs in the same place - this is the mouth of the Catatumbo River flowing into the lake. This phenomenon presumably occurs because the area is heavily swamped and, as a result, rich in methane. River waters, flowing through swampy areas, washing away organic matter, contribute to the evaporation of methane, which, rising into the atmosphere, interacts with the winds that blow from mountain range. Methane is believed to fuel persistent thunderstorms.
The fact that it is the interaction of water, methane and clouds that contributes to the appearance of constant thunderstorms in this area is evidenced by the fact that during severe drought, when the waters of the Catatumbo River do not reach the swamps, this rare natural phenomenon stops for several months.
Constant thunderstorms in the area of Lake Maracaibo are considered the largest ozone generator on our planet. Because of this, many conservationists and local ecologists are trying to get this phenomenon included in the list of monuments that are protected by UNESCO. Although such precedents have not yet happened.
“Catatumbo Lightning” even gives its name to some types of firearms produced in Venezuela. Lightning bolts are depicted on the flag and coat of arms of the state where the lake is located. This phenomenon is also mentioned in the anthem of the Venezuelan state.
Thunderstorms in the vicinity of Lake Maracaibo. Video.
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