Lightning Strikes Radio Station in Ghana

A bolt of lightning disrupted radio transmissions when it struck Multimedia’s radio tower in the Accra area of southern Ghana on 20 October 2015. A storm system moved through the area during Tuesday morning and early afternoon. The lightning strike broke the signal from Multimedia’s flagship radio station Joy FM, as well as three other stations housed in the same building.

Our ENcast satellite system detected a lightning-dense storm system moving westward down the coast of Ghana. As you can see from the image above, there were high levels of in-cloud (purple) lightning which is often a precursor to cloud-to-ground lightning and other severe weather conditions like heavy rain, flooding, and tornadoes.

The dark blue areas pictured above show the stronger parts of the storm cell which had the most rain. Parts of Accra experience extreme flooding throughout the year. Luckily this storm only lasted as little as a half hour in some areas so there wasn’t any severe flooding damage.

The above image shows the strike that we believe hit the radio station, as well as other pulses in the area around 10:30am UTC.