Lightning travels which direction usually or more often?

Answer 1

Very good question and here is the scientific answer. When negative charge near the bottom of the cloud becomes large enough to overcome the air's resistance, electrons (called the step leader) begins to flow downward toward the ground. When these approach the ground a region of positive charge moves up into the air to meet the downward step leader. When they meet a strong current or return stroke surges upwards into the cloud. The amperage of a typical thunderstorm may vary from 10,000 to 200,000 amps, with a potential difference of several hundred million volts. The power generated by one thunderstorm may be in the neighborhood of several hundred megawatts. As one questioner pondered several weeks ago "if only we could harness this energy". Now you should have a little better understanding of this process. It is both from the cloud and from the ground. There is also cloud to cloud lightning, but I'll leave that for another day.

Answer 2

It's possible. Lightning strikes on aircraft rarely cause that kind of damage, but each lightning strike is different. There is one case where a USAF C-130 Hercules was destroyed by lightning when the lightning caused a fuel tank too explode. One time while flying a weather recon mission our WC-130 took a lightning strike on the right external fuel tank (we didn't know about it until we landed), the lightning hit the fuel tank traveled approximately 18 inches along the fuel tank and then exited the fuel tank without causing any damage except to burn the paint off the entrance and exit spots. So yes it's possible.

Answer 3

Well, that sorta depends on what you mean by "travels". :^)

In the kind of lightning most of us witness, it often seems to us to come from the sky and strike the ground. However, special photographic techniques and research has shown that in cases like that, the lightning does begin as very dim, low-power strokes that gradually approach the ground, called "stepped leaders". When those strokes finally reach the ground or close to it, there is the far more powerful "return stroke", which is much brighter and carries the bulk of the electrical current. It is this stroke that we often see, and it moves from the ground upwards to the sky.

So in a case like this, which direction would you say the lightning "travels"? You could argue either way, I suppose. The return stroke is what we really see (and maybe that's what matters), but it doesn't happen by itself, without the stepped leaders advancing first in the opposite direction.

The same principle also applies for intracloud discharges. It really depends on your perspective and definition of "traveling".

Answer 4

Lightning travels in all directions mainly upwards and downwards.