April 22, 2026
Glowing or just glowing headlines?
Treetops glowing during storms captured on film for first time
Storm-chasing minivan films 'glowing' trees — commenters cry 'It's UV, not magic'
TLDR: Scientists captured UV footage of tiny electrical “glows” on leaf tips during a storm — the first in-nature catch — which may help create air-cleaning chemicals. Commenters cheered the science but dunked on the hype, insisting it’s UV video overlays (not visible glow photos) and debating the missing “St. Elmo’s fire” label.
A Penn State crew in a DIY science van just snagged the first-ever footage of trees “glowing” during a thunderstorm — but the internet immediately slammed on the brakes. The team aimed a UV-sensitive telescope at sweetgum and pine branches during a storm and caught tiny electric fizz at leaf tips. That’s corona discharge: little sparks that create air-cleaning chemicals. Cool, right? Cue the comment wars.
One camp went full fact-check mode. “There is in fact no photograph of treetops glowing,” snapped one user, pointing out it’s UV video overlaid on visible footage — not the neon forest rave the headline implies. Another squad yelled name it right: multiple commenters wondered why the paper and article never said St. Elmo’s fire, the classic term for stormy glow effects. Meanwhile, a lifelong Pacific Northwesterner got nostalgic (and a little spooked), remembering browned needle tips high in firs and wondering if mini-zaps have been quietly singeing crowns for years.
And then came the memes. “Storm troopers, but not the kind you’d expect,” quipped one joker, as the minivan-turned-observatory became instant Reddit-core. Bottom line: scientists say it’s real, it’s in nature, and it might help clean the air — but commenters are policing the hype, demanding clarity, and renaming it faster than you can say “glow-up.”
Key Points
- •Penn State researchers directly observed corona discharges on treetop leaf tips in nature for the first time during thunderstorms.
- •Observations were made near the University of North Carolina at Pembroke after an unsuccessful storm chase in Florida.
- •The team used a custom Corona Observing Telescope System—a Newtonian telescope with a UV camera—to capture UV emissions from corona.
- •UV from corona discharges splits water vapor to form hydroxyl, the atmosphere’s main oxidizer; prior work linked corona UV to hydroxyl creation.
- •Findings, including noted leaf-tip damage at corona sites, were published in Geophysical Research Letters.