The phrase "lightning across" is correct and can be used in written English
You can use it to describe something moving or happening very quickly or suddenly, often with a sense of energy or intensity. Example: The news of the accident spread like lightning across the town.
It spread like lightning across Spain -- not in cries or whispers, but in cell-phone text messages and on the Internet.
The image is perhaps one of the most striking and enduring, evidenced by the fans now rushing to change their Facebook profile pictures to overlay a bolt of lightning across their own face in his honour.
This is the only shocking, as opposed to gruelling or mock-glamorous, act of violence that I have witnessed onscreen in the past year, because it flashes out of nowhere, like lightning across a clear sky.
While these sorts of chain letters might seem like a pretty trivial form of fake news to worry about, the problem of false rumors spreading like lightning across WhatsApp's platform has been linked to far more serious consequences.
Damage from lightning across the state amounted to $24,000.
It swept like lightning across the satellite states of Eastern Europe, those "pillars" of the old Soviet empire, most of which had (as in the Middle East today) seemed quiescent for years.
LIGHTNING SNAPS ACROSS a violet Texas sky as a Walter Mittyesque driver sits inside the dirt-track racing car waiting for the push that will bring the 750hp beast to life.
Like spilt ink, like shadows racing across the face of still water, like lightning crackling across the sky.
Greenish lightning flashed across the ocean darkness, and there was a distant grumble of thunder.
Lightning danced across the sky and the collective blood pressure inside rose ever so slightly.
A hurricane's a-coming, rain batters down, lightning flashes across the sky.
