sheet lightning

sheet lightning (usually uncountable, plural sheet lightnings)

1. A broad flash of lightning, with no visible bolt, due to reflection.
   • 1812, General view of the agriculture, state of property, and improvements in the county of Dumfries‎:

     In most very warm days in summer the thermometer stands above 70 degrees on the scale of Fahrenheit, about the centre of the county; in the summer of 1811, it stood repeatedly above 80°; and on the 25th of May, 1807, during the time when the sheet lightning of tropical regions appeared, about three in the afternoon, it stood at 92° in the shade within three miles of Moffat!

   • 1859 October, “Marvels of Thunder-Storms”, in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art‎, page 216:

     It probably belongs to the class we are accustomed to call sheet lightnings, for these are by far the most frequent in an ordinary storm.

   • 1890 January, William Marriott, “Second report of the thunderstorm committee”, in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society‎, volume 16, number 73:

     The occurrence of sheet lightning in a particular district did not necessarily involve that a thunderstorm was experienced there, for it frequently happened that the storm was a long way off.

   • 2014, Karen Bassie-Sweet, Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities‎, page 95:

     K'iche' diviners believe that they have a kind of soul in their blood in the form of sheet lightning.