Does lightening travel to the ground or from the ground?

Answer 1

It can do both but from the ground is an unusual phenomena it usually travels to the ground.

Answer 2

Actually it is both. It all begins with a very large amount of ionisation in clouds. Light, positively charged pieces of ice and water pile up towards the top of the cloud and heavier, negatively charged pieces accumulate at the bottom of the cloud. The ground below the cloud becomes positively charged. Eventually the charges become so great that a massive lightening bolt known as the leader zig zags to the ground. This ionises or charges the air along its path. A split second later there is a return stroke of lightening back up along the path the leader made on is way down.

Answer 3

The lightning travels from the cloud to the ground, but the "connection" to the ground comes before the lightning is dischanrged. The connection is due to ions on the ground becoming positively charged.
The web site below gives a good explanation.

Answer 4

To the ground

Answer 5

You mean lightning, not lightEning. I've heard that it actually starts from the ground and then it streams from above into one of several 'guide bolts' or something. Several of these 'guide bolts' would start from the ground and then the energy would flow from the clouds down any random one of these 'guidelines'. I read it under a photo on the internet of a very close lightning strike.

Answer 6

The first process in the generation of lightning is the ejection of charged particles from the sun in what is called the solar wind [citation needed]. The Earth acquires an electric charge in its outer atmospheric layers, especially the ionosphere, from these particles. This charge will neutralize itself through any available path. This may assist in the forcible separation of positive and negative charge carriers within a cloud or air, and thus help in the formation of lightning.

Cloud-to-ground lightning is a great lightning discharge between a cumulonimbus cloud and the ground initiated by the downward-moving leader stroke. This is the second most common type of lightning. One special type of cloud-to-ground lightning is anvil-to-ground lightning, a form of positive lightning, since it emanates from the anvil top of a cumulonimbus cloud where the ice crystals are positively charged. In anvil-to-ground lightning, the leader stroke issues forth in a nearly horizontal direction until it veers toward the ground. These usually occur miles ahead of the main storm and will strike without warning on a sunny day. They are signs of an approaching storm and are known colloquially as "bolts out of the blue".

Ground-to-cloud lightning is a lightning discharge between the ground and a cumulonimbus cloud from an upward-moving leader stroke. These thunderstorm clouds are formed wherever there is enough upward motion, instability in the vertical, and moisture to produce a deep cloud that reaches up to levels somewhat colder than freezing. These conditions are most often met in summer. Lightning occurs less frequently in the winter because there is not as much instability and moisture in the atmosphere as there is in the summer. These two ingredients work together to make convective storms that can produce lightning. Without instability and moisture, strong thunderstorms are unlikely. Lightning originates around 15,000 to 25,000 feet above sea level when raindrops are carried upward until some of them convert to ice. For reasons that are not widely agreed upon, a cloud-to-ground lightning flash originates in this mixed water and ice region. The charge then moves downward in 50-yard sections called step leaders. It keeps moving toward the ground in these steps and produces a channel along which charge is deposited. Eventually it encounters something on the ground that is a good connection. The circuit is complete at that time, and the charge is lowered from cloud-to-ground. The return stroke is a flow of charge(current) which produces luminosity much brighter than the part that came down. This entire event usually takes less than half a second.

However, it has been proven by movies taken of typical lightning strikes and then, using single-frame examination (looking at each frame of a sequence), that a typical lightning strike is made up of anywhere from 8 to 12 or more individual discharges, with each successive discharge being less intense and farther apart in time. This is easily explained by a process known in the electronics industry as damped oscillation, which is sustained by the magnetic field that is built up in the surrounding air during current flow in each discharge, and then that magnetic field starts collapsing when current flow starts decreasing at the end of the current flow. This causes induced current that continues in the same direction, sustaining current flow beyond the point where the original charge voltage would have been depleted, and possibly reversing the charge voltage polarity, bringing on the next successive discharge, as long as sufficient charge is available to sustain another discharge. (This is almost exactly the type of current-flow used in alternating-current circuits to drive motors, lamps, etc.).

Hope this answers your question

Answer 7

There is an initial strike from the cloud to the ground followed by the main surge which is from the ground to the cloud.

Answer 8

I think it travels from clouds to ground. Some will tell you that it travels from ground to clouds. Ball lightning seems to support my view.

Answer 9

it travels to the ground

Answer 10

lightening travels only from cloud to ground and from cloud to whatever else it can go to. like a plane or building