Australia Hit by 1.1 Million Lightning Strikes in a Single Day

Australia experienced an unprecedented surge of over 1.1 million lightning strikes on Sunday, largely impacting central Australia, Queensland, and South Australia, according to Weatherzone’s lightning tracker. A vast band of storms swept across the region, filling the sky with lightning that surprised experts due to the unusual intensity.

In Uluru, an astonishing 719,068 lightning strikes were recorded across an 800-kilometer area. Meanwhile, south-east Queensland encountered severe storms with 328,627 strikes, while northern Australia recorded around 95,000 strikes, as reported by 9News.

Experts noted an unexpectedly high concentration of lightning strikes in typically calm areas, with Weatherzone highlighting unusual activity across central Australia, South Australia, and eastern Western Australia, where lightning is rarely seen at such scale.

These storms were triggered by two separate trough systems—one over central Australia and another over the eastern part of the country.

Queensland, in particular, is bracing for more extreme weather, including thunderstorms and heatwaves in the days ahead. The Bureau of Meteorology issued a health warning for the Cape Peninsula due to soaring temperatures. The storms in south-east Queensland led to concert cancellations and evacuations, affecting events like A Day on the Green, Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s show at Sirromet, and Take That’s concert, all halted for safety reasons.

In Dalby, Queensland, lightning ignited $30,000 worth of hay bales on a bull farm, causing a significant loss.