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Lightning discharges may occur between areas of cloud without contacting the ground. When it occurs between two separate clouds, it is known as cloud-to-cloud (CC) or inter-cloud lightning; when it occurs between areas of differing electric potential within a single cloud, it is known as intra-cloud (IC) lightning. IC lightning is the most ...
Sympathetic lightning is the tendency of lightning to be loosely coordinated across long distances. Discharges can appear in clusters when viewed from space. [22] [23] [24] [clarification needed] Upward lightning or ground-to-cloud lightning is a lightning flash which originates from the top of a grounded object and propagates upward from this ...
Cloud-to-ground lightning. Typically, lightning discharges 30,000 amperes, at up to 100 million volts, and emits light, radio waves, x-rays and even gamma rays. [1] Plasma temperatures in lightning can approach 28,000 kelvins. Atmospheric electricity describes the electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet).
Distant lightning near Louisville, Kentucky. Heat lightning (not to be confused with dry thunderstorms, which are also often called dry lightning) is a misnomer [1] used for the faint flashes of lightning on the horizon or other clouds from distant thunderstorms that do not appear to have accompanying sounds of thunder. Heat lightning in Tokyo
When a sufficiently large positive lightning strike carries charges to the ground, the cloud top is left with a strongly negative net charge. This can be modeled as a quasi-static electric dipole and for less than 10 milliseconds a strong electric field is generated in the region above the thunderstorm.
The shelf of the anvil may precede the main cloud's vertical component for many kilometres (miles), and be accompanied by lightning. Occasionally, rising air parcels surpass the equilibrium level (due to momentum) and form an overshooting top culminating at the maximum parcel level. When vertically developed, this largest of all clouds usually ...
Most are intracloud (IC) lightning and cloud-to-cloud (CC), where discharges only occur high in the atmosphere. [1] [2] Lightning strikes the average commercial aircraft at least once a year, but modern engineering and design means this is rarely a problem. The movement of aircraft through clouds can even cause lightning strikes. [3]
[48]: 2 The most visible natural occurrence of this is lightning, caused when charge becomes separated in the clouds by rising columns of air, and raises the electric field in the air to greater than it can withstand. The voltage of a large lightning cloud may be as high as 100 MV and have discharge energies as great as 250 kWh.