Elusive 'sprites' caught on camera in the Valley Sunday night

Sunday night was an eventful one in the Valley as storms lit up the skies overhead, including an atmospheric phenomenon other than the numerous lightning strikes.

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Peoria resident Michelle Giesemann recorded the storms outside her West Valley home and noticed red flashes above the clouds. That's when she realized she caught something rarely captured on camera: a red sprite.

"I saw it and I was like, was that a red sprite? It's something I've never seen before," Giesemann stated.

A sprite, according to the American Meteorological Society, is usually a red flash of light that shoots upwards into the sky above thunderstorms. Sprites predominately happen when powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strikes occur, which originate from the top of thunderstorm clouds as opposed to the bottom. Sprites only last a few milliseconds, so capturing them on camera isn't common.

It was a bit of luck for Michelle Giesemann of Peoria and Judah Brediger of Litchfield Park.
​
"I just was out in my backyard getting some videos of the monsoon storms coming this way and saw an arc. Just a flash," ​ Brediger said.

​ "I did a little bit of research, looked up 'red flash in sky from thunderstorm' and ended up finding out it was [called a sprite]."

The National Science Foundation estimates that sprites accompany one in every 200 lightning strikes.

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