Tree tops sparkle with electricity during thunderstorms

Treetops across wild landscapes are secretly sparkling like invisible Christmas lights during thunderstorms, emitting brilliant blue and ultraviolet glows that dance between leaves and branches for seconds at a time.

Scientists at Penn State have captured this ethereal phenomenon on camera for the first time, confirming that trees naturally produce electrical coronae when storm clouds create opposite charges in the atmosphere above them.

The discovery began over lunch when researcher William Brune gazed up at a tree and wondered aloud if treetops might glow during storms. That afternoon, his team grabbed a branch, subjected it to high voltage in their lab, and watched it emit the faint blue light.

Armed with a modified Toyota Sienna van packed with specialized UV cameras, the researchers chased storms across Florida before serendipitously encountering their best specimen in North Carolina. During 90 minutes of filming a sweetgum tree and loblolly pine in Pembroke, they recorded 41 coronae that flickered and jumped like twinkle lights in the wind.

The phenomenon appears widespread across thunderstorm-prone regions, suggesting countless trees are producing these spectacular light shows invisible to human eyes.