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May 21, 2024 · 5 times hotter than the Sun: Here’s why lightning is so powerful | BBC Science Focus Magazine. Lightning is one of the most spectacular displays that nature has to offer but you really don't want to be struck by it.
Sep 6, 2022 · WEATHER WATCHERS/ANDY H. There were more than 30,000 lightning flashes detected across the UK on Monday night. Weather Watcher Andy H saw this one in Kenilworth, Warwickshire. Why is the...
- Overview
- Types of Lightning
- The Impact of a Lightning Strike
- 13 Striking Photographs of Natural Disasters
Contrary to the common expression, lightning can and often does strike the same place twice.
Lightning is an electrical discharge caused by imbalances between storm clouds and the ground, or within the clouds themselves. Most lightning occurs within the clouds.
"Sheet lightning" describes a distant bolt that lights up an entire cloud base. Other visible bolts may appear as bead, ribbon, or rocket lightning.
During a storm, colliding particles of rain, ice, or snow inside storm clouds increase the imbalance between storm clouds and the ground, and often negatively charge the lower reaches of storm clouds. Objects on the ground, like steeples, trees, and the Earth itself, become positively charged—creating an imbalance that nature seeks to remedy by passing current between the two charges.
Lightning is extremely hot—a flash can heat the air around it to temperatures five times hotter than the sun’s surface. This heat causes surrounding air to rapidly expand and vibrate, which creates the pealing thunder we hear a short time after seeing a lightning flash.
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Cloud-to-ground lightning bolts are a common phenomenon—about 100 strike Earth’s surface every single second—yet their power is extraordinary. Each bolt can contain up to one billion volts of electricity.
A typical cloud-to-ground lightning bolt begins when a step-like series of negative charges, called a stepped leader, races downward from the bottom of a storm cloud toward the Earth along a channel at about 200,000 mph (300,000 kph). Each of these segments is about 150 feet (46 meters) long.
When the lowermost step comes within 150 feet (46 meters) of a positively charged object, it is met by a climbing surge of positive electricity, called a streamer, which can rise up through a building, a tree, or even a person.
When the two connect, an electrical current flows as negative charges fly down the channel towards earth and a visible flash of lightning streaks upward at some 200,000,000 mph (300,000,000 kph), transferring electricity as lightning in the process.
Some types of lightning, including the most common types, never leave the clouds but travel between differently charged areas within or between clouds. Other rare forms can be sparked by extreme forest fires, volcanic eruptions, and snowstorms. Ball lightning, a small, charged sphere that floats, glows, and bounces along oblivious to the laws of gravity or physics, still puzzles scientists.
About one to 20 cloud-to-ground lightning bolts is "positive lightning," a type that originates in the positively charged tops of stormclouds. These strikes reverse the charge flow of typical lightning bolts and are far stronger and more destructive. Positive lightning can stretch across the sky and strike "out of the blue" more than 10 miles from the storm cloud where it was born.
Lightning is not only spectacular, it’s dangerous. About 2,000 people are killed worldwide by lightning each year. Hundreds more survive strikes but suffer from a variety of lasting symptoms, including memory loss, dizziness, weakness, numbness, and other life-altering ailments. Strikes can cause cardiac arrest and severe burns, but 9 of every 10 people survive. The average American has about a 1 in 5,000 chance of being struck by lightning during a lifetime.
Lightning's extreme heat will vaporize the water inside a tree, creating steam that may blow the tree apart. Cars are havens from lightning—but not for the reason that most believe. Tires conduct current, as do metal frames that carry a charge harmlessly to the ground.
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A supercell thunderstorm strikes in South Dakota. Among the most severe storms, supercells can bring strong winds, hail, and even tornadoes. ( See more extreme weather pictures .)
Lightning Strikes
A supercell thunderstorm strikes in South Dakota. Among the most severe storms, supercells can bring strong winds, hail, and even tornadoes. (See more extreme weather pictures.)
Photograph by Jim Reed, National Geographic
- 3 min
May 25, 2024 · Lightning, the visible discharge of electricity that occurs when a region of a cloud acquires an excess electrical charge, either positive or negative, sufficient to break down the resistance of air. It can occur within the cloud, between clouds, between the cloud and the air, or between the cloud and the ground.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Oct 19, 2023 · Photograph. Article. Vocabulary. Lightning is an electric charge or current. It can come from the clouds to the ground, from cloud to cloud, or from the ground to a cloud. Lightning is a product of a planet ’s atmosphere. Raindrops very high up in the sky turn to ice. When many small pieces of these frozen raindrops collide with each other in ...
Aug 19, 2020 · Lightning is a random act of nature that can strike at any time of the year, most often during summer months. So far this year, there have been 26 people reported to have been struck by lightning; 12 of those people died.*
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The most lightning-struck location in the world. Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela is the place on Earth that receives the most lightning strikes. Massive thunderstorms occur on 140-160 nights per...
