Back in 2011 we wrote a news item about the strange lights that can sometimes be seen dancing in the sky above storm clouds – Dancing Clouds. We saw in a recent post by the Bad Astronomer at Slate Magazine that these amazing light effects, caused by the ice crystals above the storm cloud aligning with the shifting electrostatic fields caused by lightening strikes below, were given a name back in 1971.

In a letter to Nature Magazine about a sighting in 1970, this amazing light effect was named “A Crown Flash”.