What is lightning and how does it form?

Answer 1

Warm and moist air rises into the sky and cools dramatically forming thunder clouds.Some of the water inside the clouds freezes and strong air currents make the ice and water droplets bump together.This knocks tiny charged particles called electrons from the ice and there is a build-up of electrical charge.
In this process, some clouds lose electrons and acquire positive charge and others collect those elctrons and become negatively charged.
When clouds holding positive and negative static electrical charges approach one another,they constitute to form capacitors.Just like a capacitor discharges its accumulated charge once the breakdown potential is reached,the clouds(or a cloud and ground) also discharge the charges once the potential difference exceeds a certain limit.
This charge is released by a stroke of lightning and thunder in the following manner:-
During the course of the discharge, a very heavy current flows between the clouds( or between the cloud and the earth) and this electrical energy is converted into enormous heat which heats the air to an incredible 30000 degree celcius or 54000 degree fahrenheit, five times hotter than the surface of the sun.This heat devastates molecules and particles of the discharged portions of the clouds into a plasma state which emits bright radiation which is called lightning.

Answer 2

Lightning is complicated and we don't know everything there is to know about it, there are some strange foirms of lightning that we know very little about.

The normal lightning is in effect a giant spark leaping between positively and nagatively charged areas.

In a thunder cloud there is a rapid upward movement of air, this causes the 'mushroom' effect you often see with thunder clouds. This air movement carries with it electrically charged particles resulting in the top of the cloud becoming positively charged and the bottom of the cloud being negatively charged. The surface of the Earth is also positively charged.

Immediately prior to a stroke of lightning there is a very small stroke of lightning and what happens here is that a path is created either within the clour of between the base of the cloud and the ground. This path starts at both the top and bottom of the lightning stroke and meets in the middle, it is created in a series of jagged steps. When the path is complete the main discharge of lightning occurs, this is the one we see as a bright flash.

Answer 3

To Learn More About Lightning go to this link
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/jetstream/lightning/lightning_intro.htm

Lightning is one of the oldest observed natural phenomena on earth. At the same time, it also is one of the least understood. While lightning is simply a gigantic spark of static electricity (the same kind of electricity that sometimes shocks you when you touch a doorknob), scientists do not have a complete grasp on how it works, or how it interacts with solar flares impacting the upper atmosphere or the earth's electromagnetic field.

Lightning has been seen in volcanic eruptions, extremely intense forest fires, surface nuclear detonations, heavy snowstorms, and in large hurricanes. However, it is most often seen in thunderstorms. In fact, lightning (and the thunder that results) is what makes a thunderstorms.

At any given moment, there can be as many as 2,000 thunderstorms occurring across the globe. This translates to more than 14.5 MILLION storms each year. NASA satellite research indicated these storms produce lightning flashes about 40 times a second worldwide.

This is a change from the commonly accepted value of 100 flashes per second which was an estimate from 1925. Whether it is 40, 100, or somewhere in between, we live on an electrified planet.
How Lightning is Created
The conditions needed to produce lightning have been known for some time. However, exactly how lightning forms has never been verified so there is room for debate. Leading theories focus around separation of electric charge and generation of an electric field within a thunderstorm. Recent studies also indicate that ice, hail, and semi-frozen water drops known as graupel are essential to lightning development. Storms that fail to produce large quantities of ice usually fail to produce lightning.

Forecasting when and where lightning will strike is not yet possible and most likely never will be. But by educating yourself about lightning and learning some basic safety rules, you, your family, and your friends can avoid needless exposure to the dangers of one of the most capricious and unpredictable forces of nature.

Charge Separation
Thunderstorms have very turbulent environments. Strong updrafts and downdrafts occur with regularity and within close proximity to each other. The updrafts transport small liquid water droplets from the lower regions of the storm to heights between 35,000 and 70,000 feet, miles above the freezing level.

Meanwhile, downdrafts transport hail and ice from the frozen upper regions of the storm. When these collide, the water droplets freeze and release heat. This heat in turn keeps the surface of the hail and ice slightly warmer than its surrounding environment, and a "soft hail", or "graupel" forms.

When this graupel collides with additional water droplets and ice particles, a critical phenomenon occurs: Electrons are sheared off of the ascending particles and collect on the descending particles. Because electrons carry a negative charge, the result is a storm cloud with a negatively charged base and a positively charged top.



Field Generation
In the world of electricity, opposites attract and insulators inhibit. As positive and negative charges begin to separate within the cloud, an electric field is generated between its top and base. Further seperation of these charges into pools of positive and negative regions results in a strengthening of the electic field.

However, the atmosphere is a very good insulator that inhibits electric flow, so a TREMENDOUS amount of charge has to build up before lightning can occur. When that charge threshold is reached, the strength of the electric field overpowers the atmosphere's insulating properties, and lightning results.

The electric field within the storm is not the only one that develops. Below the negatively charged storm base, positive charge begins to pool within the surface of the earth (see image left). This positive charge will shadow the storm wherever it goes, and is responsible for cloud-to-ground lightning. However, the electric field within the storm is much stronger than the one between the storm base and the earth's surface, so most lightning (~75-80%) occurs within the storm cloud itself.




How Lightning Develops Between The Cloud And The Ground
A moving thunderstorm gathers another pool of positively charged particles along the ground that travel with the storm (image 1). As the differences in charges continue to increase, positively charged particles rise up taller objects such as trees, houses, and telephone poles.

Answer 4

Lightning is electricity. It is formed by the same action that causes static electricity to shock you when you walk across carpeting and touch something made of metal.
Basically, the clouds (and rain, wind, etc.) are moving over the earth, picking up electrically charged particles (called "ions") which build up until they discharge themselves and return to a balanced state. The more "friction" (wind, rain, etc.) in the atmosphere, the more lightning that will form. When one area has "too many" electrically charged ions in it, the ions seek to find a balanced harmony, by sending those charges to an oppositely charged source (often the ground.)

Answer 5

check out a site called Lightning The Big Spark

Answer 6

it's like, electricity from the clouds rubbing together.