A recent satellite view of a massive nor’easter storm off the North Carolina coast gave us a stunning display of a rare ‘sparking storm’. NASA detected the phenomenon using their Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) on the GOES-East Satellite, which detects and records lightning over the Americas through near-infrared wavelengths. They were able to compress six hours of the storm’s development into a 12 second video.
You can see the “sparks” from the massive storm in this 12 second clip (6-hr time-lapse of the storm):
The storm was predicted to bring damaging winds, 8-12 feet breaking waves, and coastal flooding to the Outer Banks. Unfortunately, its waves caused an 1,100-square-foot house in Rodanthe to collapse into the ocean, where it was broken apart by the heavy surf.
The debris trail it left spread across 21 miles of beaches in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Additionally, dunes near the Pea Island Visitor Center were breached, affecting traffic on the highway.
