Can lighting strike out of nowhere?

And while that may sound like a rare or even freakish event, it’s not that uncommon for lightning to travel far from its originating cloud, experts say. In some cases, bolts have struck as much as 25 miles from where they originated.

Does a lightning strike have several flashes?

Most lightning starts inside a thunderstorm and travels through the cloud. There are roughly 5 to 10 times as many flashes that remain in the cloud as there are flashes which travel to the ground, but individual storms may have more or fewer flashes reaching ground.

What happens when there is continuous lightning?

Rather than charge flowing in one or more separate return strokes, charge flows continuously over a longer period of time through the lightning channel (Figure2). Lightning flashes containing continuing current are particularly important because they are more likely to start fires.

Why does lightning appear jagged?

Lightning is jagged because each leader forms independently of the others. Each place a lightning bolt zigs or zags is where one leader stopped and another one started. Each place a lightning bolt forks is where two separate leaders formed from the bottom end of a single leader above.

Where does lightning usually strike?

Often lightning occurs between clouds or inside a cloud. But the lightning we usually care about most is the lightning that goes from clouds to ground—because that’s us! As the storm moves over the ground, the strong negative charge in the cloud attracts positive charges in the ground.

What is the difference between a lightning strike and a lightning flash?

As nouns the difference between flash and lightning is that flash is a sudden, short, temporary burst of light while lightning is a flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth.

Why is the lightning flashing?

Intra-cloud lightning is an electrical discharge between oppositely charged areas within the thunderstorm cloud. Cloud-to-ground lightning is a discharge between opposite charges in the cloud and on the ground. We see this discharge as the bright flash of lightning.

Can lightning straight?

straight lightning is extremely rare, indeed very rare. The atmosphere appears to have a high amount of moisture which suggests many small droplets may be in between the channel and our eyes. This will obscure any branches. But there is no evidence of ANY branching.

Why are there lightning branches?

If you have a stream of weakly charged particles moving through the air, sometimes the particles will split from each other trying to find the path of least resistance through the air. When this happens, branches will form and this is what people call branch or forked lightning.

What happens during the phase of lightning?

A “stepped leader” of negative charge descends from the cloud seeking out a path toward the ground. Although this phase of a lightning strike is too rapid for human eyes, this slow-motion video shows it happening. As the negative charge gets close to the ground, a positive charge, called a streamer, reaches up to meet the negative charge.

What causes lightning to strike?

Lightning can be explained in terms of charges produced due to rubbing. During a thunderstorm, the air currents move upwards and the water droplets move downwards. And this caused due to the separation of charge due to this vigorous motion.

Does Lightning come from the ground up or down?

4 Answers. Cloud-to-ground lightning comes from the sky down, but the part you see comes from the ground up. A typical cloud-to-ground flash lowers a path of negative electricity (that we cannot see) towards the ground in a series of spurts. Objects on the ground generally have a positive charge.

Why do we hear Lightning before we see it?

This creates an initial CRACK sound, followed by rumbles as the column of air continues to vibrate. If we are watching the sky, we see the lightning before we hear the thunder. That is because light travels much faster than sound waves.