What is Heat Lightning and is it Dangerous?

Have you ever seen thunderless flashes of lightning in the sky on a hot summer night? You were probably witnessing heat lightning. 

These flashes of light tend to puzzle observers because they wait for a big boom of thunder that never seems to come. 

What is Heat Lightning?

What causes heat lightning is fairly straightforward. It’s simply a part of a distant thunderstorm. 

Heat lightning is a bit of a misnomer because it makes people think the flashes of lightning have something to do with the temperature in the air. In reality, it’s part of a regular storm system that’s so far away, you can’t hear the thunder.