The Tongan volcano eruption produced the most intense burst of lightning ever recorded with 43 flashes per second.<br /><br />When the Hunga volcano blew its top in January last year it was the largest eruption since Krakatoa in 1883.<br /><br />Now scientists studying its plume have detected 2,615 flashes of lightning a minute at its height, lasting five minutes.<br /><br />That's more than two and a half times the previous record of 993 detected in a storm over the US in 1999.<br /><br />Also detected were donut-shaped rings of lightning, 174 miles in diameter, the largest ever seen, according to the study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.<br /><br />Overall there were nearly 200,000 lightning flashes in the volcanic plume throughout the eruption which lasted at least 11 hours, several hours longer than previously known.
