Meteorologists and climate scientists were startled Monday after the U.S. National Weather Service confirmed that an extremely rare occurrence of lightning had been observed at the North Pole.

Multiple lightning strikes were recorded by the NWS office in Fairbanks, Alaska between 4:00 and 6:00pm on Saturday, within 300 miles of the pole.

The NWS saw it necessary to release a public statement on the lightning event, which usually doesn’t take place at the North Pole due to icy temperatures.

“This is one of the furthest north lightning strikes in Alaska forecaster memory,” the NWS said.

Experts observed storm clouds in the region which, at lower latitudes, would have preceded thunderstorms. Lightning generally happens much further south because relatively higher temperatures and humidity levels are needed to cause the phenomenon.

The lightning at the North Pole was observed after climate experts have spent weeks recording higher-than-average temperatures in the Arctic. The warming globe is causing sea ice in the region to disappear at a higher rate than ever recorded, as Common Dreams reported last month. The melting ice in turn is contributing to a warmer Arctic.

As the Washington Post reported, the lighting denotes “that the atmosphere near the pole was unstable enough, with sufficient warm and moist air in the lower atmosphere, to give rise to thunderstorms.”

“The probability of this kind of event occurring would increase as the sea ice extent retreats farther and farther north in the summertime,” Alex Young, a meteorologist with the NWS in Fairbanks, told Wired.