Boom, crash, boom! We all know these familiar sounds of a lightning storm. But do we know what happens during one? Of course! It rains, and there’s thunder and lightning. I wrote this article so that you could learn MORE about this natural phenomenon.
Lightning isn’t just a bright, jagged flash of light in the sky. It is actually electricity, exiting the cloud it was being stored in. That jagged flash of electricity is called a lightning stroke, or bolt.

Here’s a brief explanation of what a lightning bolt is. Inside the thunderhead (the cloud that the lightning comes from), electrical charges become separated. Warm updrafts of air sweep the positive charges up to the top of the cloud, leaving the bottom negatively charged. The attraction between the ground and the negative charges in the bottom of the cloud then create a lightning bolt, a current of negative charge that travels from the cloud to the ground.

One bolt of lightning stores about 250 kilowatt-hours of energy. At the current cost of energy, that’s about $16.75 worth!

Lightning doesn’t just zap from a cloud to the ground, like I explained above, it can also happen in the cloud, from the ground to the cloud, and from one cloud to another.
There are several different types of lightning, too. Scientists categorize lightning into different types according to what the lightning does while it is visible. Here is a list of a few different types of lightning, excluding common lightning, which I have already explained to you.

Type #1: Chain Lightning

Chain lighting is second most common to common lightning. It always shoots from a cloud toward the ground. So if it didn’t shoot from a cloud toward the ground, it’s not chain lightning. A bolt of chain lightning comes down in a very crooked line. It usually breaks into many bolts. It sometimes hits the ground. But the bolt only comes down part of the way. The bolt in the sky is attracted to the ground which compels the ground to send a bolt up from it, then both bolts hit with an electrifying CRASH!

Type #2: Ball Lightning

Scientists are still unsure of what ball lightning might be, or how it is formed. It usually appears by electrical wires, though, and when thunderstorms are near. So they can guess that it is electric, which is why it is called lightning. It is always in the form of a glowing, red-orange or blue ball. It usually makes a small noise and effects electrical appliances. It moves quite rapidly in the air, but near the ground it moves much more slowly. It may explode, but usually just disappears without a sound. Whatever it is, ball lightning is an intriguing mystery.

Type #3: Heat Lightning

Heat lightning appears most often on summer nights, and seems to create no thunder. It is actually lightning that happens so far away, that the observer cannot hear the thunder that occurs after it. Usually, the distance between the observer and the lightning is more than about 15 miles. But the people underneath the heat lightning experience a normal thunderstorm with thunder.

Some other types of lightning that I have not explained are: forked lightning; streak lightning; ribbon lightning; and sheet lightning.

Do you know what thunder is? Of course you do! It’s a big booming sound that comes after a lightning bolt! But it’s really the sound that the lightning makes. You see, lightning is very hot. It can get up to 50,000° Fahrenheit! It makes the air around it heat up, too. Thunder is the sound of the lightning heating the air. The reason that the thunder comes AFTER the lightning, even though the lightning makes the sound, is that light travels faster than sound. So the light (which is the lightning) comes quicker and shows first, while the sound comes slower and gets there second.

I hope you’ve learned something SHOCKINGLY new today, because I sure have! ZZZZZAP!

By: Tyler

Bibliography:

Books: STORMS Simon, Seymour; LIGHTNING Saunders-Smith, Gail.

Websites: http://thunder.nsstc.nasa.gov/
http://thunder.msfc.nasa.gov/primer/primer2.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/lightning8.htm

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