A relentless lightning show lit up the Tampa Bay sky early Thursday morning.

Nonstop bolts of lightning led to rumble after rumble, disrupting the sleep of residents across Tampa Bay. The storm began around midnight and lasted through about 2 a.m., according to Christianne Pearce, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Tampa Bay office.

Over the past day, radar recorded about 90,000 lightning strikes across Florida, according to Matt Devitt, a Florida meteorologist.

The lightning storm sprung from two colliding boundaries. Extra instability in the atmosphere added an “oomph” to the storms, Pearce said.

“Anytime you have a collision like that, you get frequent lightning,” Pearce said.

Along with the lightning came a decent douse of rain. Across Pinellas County, up to 2 inches fell, Pearce said.

Brian McClure, a Spectrum Bay News 9 meteorologist, called the storm the “most intense lightning show we’ve had this summer” in a social media post Thursday.

A video posted by Jeff Berardelli, chief meteorologist for WFLA News Channel 8, showed continuous flashes of bright spots igniting the night, revealing a sky full of dense, heavy clouds for a full minute.

The weather service said they had not received any reports of damage in Tampa Bay from the storm.

Florida is known for its lightning, often dubbed the “lightning capital of the U.S.”

A 2025 report showed the state had the most lightning per square kilometers in the country.

The report, gathered by Vaisala, a company that tracks global weather data, showed that Shady Grove, Oklahoma, became the lightning capital of the U.S. last year. It was the first time in four years the lightning capital was not in Florida or Texas.

As for the rest of the week, afternoon thunderstorms are likely to return after a long hiatus from rain that has led to ratcheting temperatures and a slew of heat advisories.

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