Continuous lightning for over an hour; is this phenomenon common and does it have a name? A few months ago, I witnessed something off the coast of Florida that I have never seen in my life. From my apartment, from about 10PM - 12AM, I saw pretty much continuous cloud to cloud lightning. I don't really remember how many strikes a second it was, or if it was once every couple seconds, but there was never a time when there was not one or more lightning strikes in the air. I had a video but unfortunately the file is corrupted.

Is there any name of this phenomena, and how common is it?
In Norwegian we call it kornmo (grain ripener); it happens in the late summer at a distance of more than 20 km so there is no sound.

The English translation is: "sheet lightning - heat lightning - summer lightning". I am not sure if this covers the meaning we have for it in Norwegian; it is said that Thor, the god of thunder, swung his hammer over the fields to get the grain ready for harvest.

This type of lightning is at more than 20km from the viewer and often 10-20 times this distance from you. It is really beautiful to see it.

This type of lightning happens high up in the atmosphere so one needs good viewing conditions to be able to see it. I do not think it is rare in itself; what is rare is the the atmospheric conditions that allow us to see it.

I guess this does not answer your question fully so I hope others post their answers too.