Strange Lightning Thurs 25th Early Am

[Slowboat35]

Awaiting the promised rain I racked out on a recliner on my balcony last night, hoping to see a light-show. (Lowestoft area)
BBC were forecasting thundershowers from 0400 onwards with probability of I think 96%
By midnight there were discernable flashes in the southern sky but obviously far, far distant.
My lightning app showed no such activity towards or beyond London but the flashing continued intermittently.
At about 0200 the clear sky had become covered with a thin layer of hazy stratiform cloud with the odd small localised cumuliform patch, way less than 1 okta. Stars were visible through the hazy layer.
Whereupon a most spectcular and dazzling overhead display of lightning broke out apparenty in the haze layer which lasted for about 20 minutes, no discernable 'bolts' and certainly nothing resembling ground-strikes. Again, the lightning app reported absolutely nothing. They appeared to be point-sources rather than giving any impression of sparking fom a to b.
I have seldom seen such dazzling lightning which was accompanied by thunderclap gunshot sound rather than any prolonged rumbling.

Anyone else saw that, or can explain the what and the how? It certianly defeats my career-long experience with met, thunder and lightning.

True to form the BBC's 90+% forecast probability of thundershowers from 0400 to mid afternoon today produced no more rain that was able to lay the dust for half an hour before it evaporated!

 

[LittleSister]

I saw strange lightning near Lowestoft in the early hours of Thursday, but rather different to that you describe.

The sky directly overhead was very clear, with stars visible, but not far to the north and east were clouds. There were three very distinct locations of lightning going on at the same time, one to the north, one to the north-east, and one to the east. All three 'sources' were flashing repeatedly and very quickly.

I have never seen such frequent lightning in the UK. I have also never seen, UK or abroad, such predictable locations for lightning. I did wonder for a moment whether there might be some sort of military attack going on.

You could just look at one of the three locations when a flash occurred, and there would soon be a succession of other flashes, perhaps several a minute, in, it seemed, exactly the same place. Meanwhile the same was happening in the other two locations.

The lightning flashes were highly visible in the E and NE locations - bright areas, almost like beams, rather than a 'track' of lightning. The visibility and great brightness of those two locations made it seem close, while the flashes from the lightning to the north was more dispersed - obscured by clouds, and also by some trees that partially interrupted my view in that direction.

By contrast, I couldn't hear thunder at all from the NE and E locations, but could clearly hear the rumbles of thunder from the north.

Strange!

 

[Yngmar]

Not all types of lightning hit the ground, there's cloud-to-cloud (not an IT term!) lightning and intra-cloud lightning.

These are more difficult to pick up with RF lightning detecting equipment as they're weaker and usually horizontall

Lightning - Wikipedia
Lightning detection - Wikipedia

Intra-cloud lightning is often diffuse and without a visible strike, just a bright flash that lights up the cloud.

Summer thunderstorms in Croatia had lots of these cloud-to-cloud strikes that look like fingers. They were spectacular but stayed in the sky and never touched ground: