All thunderstorms carry electricity. That electricity is in the form of lightning. There can be as many as 2,000 thunderstorms happening on the earth at any given time. There can be 40 - 50 lightning flashes that are generating each second on the earth. Many lightning storms occur in the tropical regions of the earth. One of the best places to see lightning storms is in the region between Tampa and Orlando, Florida.

The heat produced by lightning causes the surrounding air to be very hot. Because this air is very hot, it explodes outward making a booming noise. This is what we call thunder. Thunder is loud and sometimes scary to animals or little kids, but thunder is not dangerous.

The temperature around a lightning bolt is 27,760 degrees Celsius. In Fahrenheit, it can be upwards of 55,552 degrees. This can be hotter than even the sun's surface.

The odds of being struck by lightning are 600,000 to 1. Of course when you follow safety rules, the odds will be even less.

Lightning bolts can travel between upper and lower clouds, inside of a cloud or even between clouds and the ground. The lightning that strikes the ground is very dangerous. That's why playing golf or soccer can be very unsafe during a lightning storm.

Lightning is especially harmful to maple trees. You might be asking why. The reason is that maple trees have sap inside them, and when the heat vaporizes this sap, it causes the trees to explode. Other trees that have wet bark from a rainstorm are unharmed because the water conducts the electricity to the ground. There can be 10,000 forest fires started each year from these lightning bolts to trees. That's a lot of forest fires that start each year from just lightning.

Benjamin Franklin was the first to discover the true electrical nature of lightning. He conducted an experiment by sending up a kite during a thunderstorm with a key attached to the string made from silk thread. Static electricity from the clouds flowed down the wet string. When Franklin put his hand near the key, he felt a mild electric shock and saw small sparks. He was very lucky because he wasn't hurt worse. Since the days of Benjamin Franklin, scientists have learned many things about lightning.