[Lee Stewart]

Venezuela experiences more lightning than anywhere on Earth.

In particular, Lake Maracaibo, right off the Caribbean Sea, holds the record for “highest concentration of lightning,” according to The Guinness Book of World Records. There, you’ll find the Catatumbo lightning—colloquially, and terrifyingly, known as the “everlasting storm”—a weather phenomenon that averages about 260 storm days per year, 150 of which feature lightning. Sometimes, there are nearly 30 lightning flashes per minute.

So, why is this region so lightning-friendly? Scientists theorize that the air above the lake is particularly conductive due to the abundance of methane from oil fields—or perhaps it’s due to some mysterious combination of topography and wind patterns