Lightning danced in the clouds for hours, visible here from the shore of Lake Flower, on Thursday evening. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — Did you see the lightning Thursday night?

Hundreds of lightning flashes lit up the sky for several hours as a storm rolled by, creating a light show like only nature can.

This was a what is colloquially called a storm. But heat lightning is really just a term for lightning that is so far away the thunder it produces cannot be heard.

Jessica Neiles, the lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service center in Burlington, Vermont, said the cloud-to-cloud lightning seen to the south on Thursday happens when particles with different electrical charges in the cloud interact.

NWS Science and Operations Officer Peter Banacos said cloud-to-cloud lightning still creates thunder, but whether people hear it depends on many factors — primarily, distance. But he also said temperature inversions with the temperature increasing with higher altitudes can keep the sound from traveling to the ground.

If lightning happens in the clouds during these circumstances, the thunder can be reflected back into the atmosphere and not reach the ground, Banacos said.

Video of the lightning can be seen at tinyurl.com/4afu7d3p and tinyurl.com/2p88muwt.

Earlier on Thursday, lightning struck a home on Park Avenue in Saranac Lake, igniting a propane line. But after quick action from a Hyde Fuel technician who was working on the system at the time, it was extinguished, saving the structure.