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 [...]

Normally, a lightning bolt (as we talked about before) hits the ground after a long, complex chain of events that concludes with a streamer from the ground reaching up and making contact with a descending ionization channel.
Throughout history, that's the way lightning has worked. People have not always understood the mechanism, of course; lightning's often [...]