'Beautiful' Sprite Lightning Flashes Over Oklahoma and Texas

Luminous sprite lightning danced across Texas and Oklahoma skies during a storm on June 19.

Paul Michael Smith shared video to YouTube that shows a thunderstorm and red sprite lightning, or sprites, flashing in the sky. The video was taken from a dock at Lake Thunderbird in Norman, Oklahoma, looking east towards Texas.

“This is one of the most complex and beautiful events I have captured out of about a thousand now,” Smith said.

Sprites are “are large but weak luminous flashes that appear directly above an active thunderstorm system,” according to the University at Albany. Sprites are usually photographed at night because their low-surface brightness makes them difficult to see, but naked eyes adjusted to the darkness can also see them, the university SAID. Credit: Paul Michael Smith via Storyful