A typical stroke of lightning stretches as long as eight miles, and forms when a negatively charged region in a storm cloud begins to send out a stepped leader. This leader is met by another leader rising from the earth, allowing the cloud to discharge to the ground, reducing the negative electrical charge. That's typically [...]
Lightning is not always confined to thunderclouds. For hundreds of years, people have observed lightning in the pillar of ash from an erupting volcano; these lightning displays are sometimes huge and much more fierce than the lightning from ordinary thunderstorms.
Scientists have long believed that these fearsome lightning displays are caused by friction between particles of [...]
When you were growing up, you probably heard all kinds of stories about lightning. In this post, we'll talk about some of the ideas you've probably heard. Some of the popular conceptions about lightning are true; others are not. We've talked about some of these beliefs in previous posts, so we'll link to other posts [...]
Let's start with an interesting fact: A typical cloud-to-ground lightning bolt is hot. Very hot. The air surrounding a lightning stroke is superheated plasma, which can be anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit. By way of comparison, the outer layer of the sun is around 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Worldwide, there are about six thousand lightning [...]
"One one-thousand, two one-thousand…" Counting the time between a flash of lightning has long been a popular way to figure out how far away a lightning flash is. Even today, some people still recommend this method to determine if you're safe from a direct strike, though this is something of a fallacy–thunder isn't audible very [...]