Canberra hit by stunning overnight lightning display
Updated
Many Canberrans were jolted awake overnight by rolling storms that put on a spectacular light show.
Two fronts, one late last night and another in the wee hours of the morning, brought rain across the city, with more falling in the morning.
So impressive were the storms, there was "a festival atmosphere" atop Mount Ainslie, according to photographer Glenn Martin.
"[There were] people with their phones out, their cameras out trying to catch it," he said.
"In the dying stages of that earlier front, at about 10:30pm, there were quite a few big, big strikes in the sky.
"And the oohs and the ahs and a few little screams as well."
Mr Martin said "the crowd went crazy" for what he called "the strike of the night", which he captured landing just in front of Old Parliament House.
If you want to capture one of these striking shots, you better be ready to bide your time, Mr Martin said.
"Night time really helps because you can have your camera open for a long exposure, so you can have five, 10, 20 seconds at a time," he said.
"Then hopefully while you've got the exposure open, you get a strike in the middle of it and that's exactly what happened with that big strike last night."
While patience is clearly important, bravery is also required, but not too many of the on-lookers were ready to push their chances.
"After that last final strike, up on Mt Ainslie a big crawler happened right above us," he said.
"That's when everybody decided to go home."
But, as pretty as it was to look at, the lightning raised real concerns for the Rural Fire Service (RFS).
The ACT RFS chief said a tree was blown apart in the north-western suburb of McKellar and they put up a helicopter over the Brindabella Ranges.
"They'll have an air observer on board and they'll go and try and find any smouldering trees or grass out there," he said.
Topics: weather, storm-event, canberra-2600, australia
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