Airplane contrails have also been observed to influence lightning to a small degree. The water vapor-dense contrails of airplanes may provide a lower resistance pathway through the atmosphere having some influence upon the establishment of an ionic pathway for a lightning flash to follow. [131] As a result of their greater power, positive lightning strikes are considerably more dangerous than negative strikes. Positive lightning produces both higher peak currents and longer continuing currents, making them capable of heating surfaces to much higher levels which increases the likelihood of a fire being ignited. The long distances positive lightning can propagate through clear air explains why they are known as "bolts from the blue", giving no warning to observers. A beautiful and deadly natural phenomenon, lightning is simply a sudden, electrostatic discharge - a ‘spark’ or ‘flash’ as charged atmospheric regions temporarily equalise themselves through this discharge. The polarity of lightning discharge can affect how it spreads and branches in space and time. This, as well as its starting and ending points and direction of movement, give rise to different ‘types’ of lightning. Lightning can strike the ground, the air, or inside clouds, but there are roughly 5 to 10 times more cloud flashes than cloud-to-ground flashes. Sheet lightning - the popular name applied to a 'cloud discharge' form of lightning in which the emitted light appears diffuse and there is an apparent absence of a main channel because of the obscuring effect of the cloud.

Large thunderstorms are capable of producing other kinds of electrical phenomena called transient luminous events (TLEs) that occur high in the atmosphere. They are rarely observed visually and not well understood. The most common TLEs include red sprites, blue jets, and elves. The cutout should be glued to stiff cardboard and then krazy-glued to the top of the lightning bolt. The heavy rain, bright flashes of lightning, and the crashing and rumbling sounds of the thunder. It’s very exciting. Maybe even a bit scary. We usually see lightning before we hear thunder. That’s because light and sound travel at different speeds. The lightning flash travels very fast, but the sound of thunder travels much more slowly. And the further away you are, the longer thetime between the lightning and the thunder.The charge carrier in lightning is mainly electrons in a plasma. [22] The process of going from charge as ions (positive hydrogen ion and negative hydroxide ion) associated with liquid water or solid water to charge as electrons associated with lightning must involve some form of electro-chemistry, that is, the oxidation and/or the reduction of chemical species. [23] As hydroxide functions as a base and carbon dioxide is an acidic gas, it is possible that charged water clouds in which the negative charge is in the form of the aqueous hydroxide ion, interact with atmospheric carbon dioxide to form aqueous carbonate ions and aqueous hydrogen carbonate ions.

There is growing evidence that lightning activity is increased by particulate emissions (a form of air pollution). [8] [9] [10] However, lightning may also improve air quality and clean greenhouse gases such as methane from the atmosphere, while creating nitrogen oxide and ozone at the same time. [11] Lightning is also the major cause of wildfire, [12] and wildfire can contribute to climate change as well. [13] More studies are warranted to clarify their relationship. CG is the least common, but best understood of all types of lightning. It is easier to study scientifically because it terminates on a physical object, namely the Earth, and lends itself to being measured by instruments on the ground. Of the three primary types of lightning, it poses the greatest threat to life and property since it terminates on the Earth or "strikes".The number of second between lightning and thunder divided by five equals your distance from the storm in miles. The induced separation of charge in pure liquid water has been known since the 1840s as has the electrification of pure liquid water by the triboelectric effect. [16] 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. The Impact of a Lightning Strike Simply screws in to a pre-drilled hole cutting its own self tapping thread without the need for a sleeve or plug.