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Positive lightning is less common than negative lightning and on average makes up less than 5% of all lightning strikes. [10] A bolt from the blue lightning strike which appears to initiate from the clear, but [clarification needed] the turbulent sky above the anvil cloud and drive a bolt of plasma through the cloud directly to the ground. They ...
A lightning strike or lightning bolt is a lightning event in which an electric discharge takes place between the atmosphere and the ground. Most originate in a cumulonimbus cloud and terminate on the ground, called cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning.
Pockels (1897) estimated lightning current intensity by analyzing lightning flashes in basalt (c. 1900) [12] and studying the left-over magnetic fields caused by lightning. [13] Discoveries about the electrification of the atmosphere via sensitive electrical instruments and ideas on how the Earth's negative charge is maintained were developed ...
A return stroke, cloud-to-ground lightning strike during a thunderstorm. Cloud-to-ground lightning frequently occurs within the phenomena of thunderstorms and have numerous hazards towards landscapes and populations. One of the more significant hazards lightning can pose is the wildfires they are capable of igniting. [54]
In the United States, lightning is especially common in Florida, which is considered the deadliest state for lightning strikes in the country. [4] This is due to high moisture content in the lower atmosphere and high surface temperature, which produces strong sea breezes along the Florida coast. [5] As a result, heat lightning is often seen ...
There are about 40,000 thunderstorms per day across the globe, generating roughly 100 lightning strikes per second, [1] which can be thought to charge the Earth like a battery. Thunderstorms generate an electrical potential difference between the Earth's surface and the ionosphere, mainly by means of lightning returning current to ground ...
This is extremely important, as Earth’s early atmosphere would’ve been made up of nonreactive N 2 molecules. Lightning was the essential piece needed to create the ingredients essential for ...
Thunder is the sound caused by and after lightning. [1] [2] [3] Depending upon the distance from and nature of the lightning, it can range from a long, low rumble to a sudden, loud crack. The sudden increase in temperature and hence pressure caused by the lightning produces rapid expansion of the air in the path of a lightning bolt. [4]