“A jellyfish sprang up above the storms”: a photographer immortalizes a leprechaun in the French sky, an extremely rare phenomenon

La méduse capturée dans la nuit du 13 au 14 août 2024 dans le nord de Lyon. Capture écran Facebook – Christophe Suarez

Dans la nuit du 13 au 14 août dernier, des farfadets ont été aperçus depuis l’arrière-pays niçois. Un photographe a capturé ces événements orageux qui se passaient au nord de Lyon, et les a partagés sur ses plateformes.

Christophe Suarez, an environmental and weather photographer but also a tornado hunter, shared on his social networks photos of leprechauns that he was able to take visible from the Nice region, reports Nice Matin. In May, the photographer had photographed a series of them in the sky of Nice.

“Known since the 90s”

A jellyfish appeared above the stormy sky of Lyon, beyond the South East region. They were actually leprechauns, which are part of transient light phenomena.

But what is a leprechaun?? It is a “intense electrical discharge that occurs above a particularly virulent cumulonimbus. This discharge, with an estimated height of up to 30 to 40 km, occurs from an altitude of 40 km and reaches the ionosphere, located at around 60 km”, explains the Météo contact website.

They appear during big storms in the mesosphere – the upper atmosphere  – during powerful lightning. They are visible in groups of two or three and are very bright red. They are often shaped like jellyfish and can be up to fifty kilometers wide.

"This is a phenomenon that has been known since the 1990s. These sprites form above cumulonimbus clouds", explains Eric Lagadec, an astrophysicist at the Côte d'Azur Observatory to our colleagues.

"After several very bright sprites, a jellyfish burst out above the storms. It is several dozen kilometers in size. Here is the video of this devil of light".