Perhaps the most dangerous lightning appears as “bolts from the blue” —
lightning that begins upward, but then moves sideways and then downward to hit the ground as much as three miles from a thunderstorm
. About 90 percent of lightning occurs inside clouds and is not visible to the casual observer.
Is lightning directional?
The answer is both.
Cloud-to-ground (CG) 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.
What does it mean when lightning is going sideways?
This is
typically caused by wind blowing the lightning channel sideways during the exposure
. The stronger the wind and closer the lightning strike, the more horizontal displacement will exist on the recorded image.
What is the rarest type of lightning?
ball lightning, also called globe lightning, a rare aerial phenomenon in the form of a luminous sphere that is generally several centimetres in diameter. It usually occurs near the ground during thunderstorms, in close association with cloud-to-ground lightning.
Why is the lightning green?
The colder the lightning, the closer the color would be to the far end of the spectrum. The most unusual and alarming lighting color is green.
Green lighting indicates that a tornado might be on its way
. This phenomena occurs later in the day when the sun gets closer to the horizon.
Can you have lightning without clouds?
Some types of lightning, including the most common types, never leave the clouds
but travel between differently charged areas within or between clouds. Other rare forms can be sparked by extreme forest fires, volcanic eruptions, and snowstorms.
What is the rarest color of lightning?
Green lightning
is a rare phenomenon that can be seen during a thunderstorm. Someone who has seen green lightning is extremely lucky as green lightning strikes are rarely seen. It is so rare that the only photograph of a green lightning strike is one from when the Chaiten volcano in Chile erupted.
What are the 3 types of lightning?
There are three common types of lightning:
cloud to ground, cloud to cloud and cloud to air
. Cloud to ground lightning is the most dangerous. The ground is mainly consisted of positively charged particles while the bottom of violent storm clouds have negative charged particles.
What is the strongest form of lightning?
The most dangerous type of lightning is
Bolt from the Blue lightning
. This type of lightning strike is incredibly dangerous due to the fact that they can strike at any time. Bolt from the Blue lightning doesn't need to originate from a thunderstorm overhead.
Which way does lightning travel?
The answer is both.
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.
Can lightning strike the ocean?
“
Lightning doesn't strike the ocean as much as land
,” NOAA said. “But when it does, it spreads out over the water, which acts as a conductor. It can hit boats that are nearby, and electrocute fish that are near the surface.”
How fast can lightning travel?
While the flashes we see as a result of a lightning strike travel at the speed of light (670,000,000 mph) an actual lightning strike travels at a comparatively gentle
270,000 mph
.
Is there Black lightning?
Dark Lightning
These terrestrial gamma rays flashes, or TGFs, are among the highest-energy light that naturally occurs on Earth, according to NASA. They're so powerful that they can blind satellite sensors hundreds of miles away.
Is Green lightning real?
Although green lightning seems unusual,
Few now suspects it occurs during all thunderstorms but is concealed inside clouds
. The concealment results from the structure of storm clouds. On the inside, the clouds contain ice crystals that are either positively or negatively charged.
What colors Can lightning be?
Lightning comes in every color of the rainbow (
Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, and Violet
, to name a few). It's almost always white, but often it's tinged with another color around the edges. The three most common colors, aside from white, are blue, yellow, and violet.
Is rainbow lightning real?
Rainbow lightning is a rare
as the chances of lightning striking near a rainbow are slim, explained Randall Cerveny, a professor of meteorology at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Can lightning pink?
[storm]
Pink lightning, (also purple lightning) is a type of lightning that is louder, and has a purple-pink color effect
. Pink lightning occurs when a storm is producing precipitation. Pink lightning is also more common, because it has positive charges.
What is the hottest color of lightning?
White lightning
is the hottest, and literally, all bolts radiate white color. They're an indication of a low concentration of moisture and dust in the air.
Why do trees get hit by lightning?
WHY LIGHTNING STRIKES TREES
They're especially prone to lightning strikes because
electricity seeks the path of least resistance, and the sap and moisture inside a tree make it a better conductor than the surrounding air
.
Is lightning hotter than the sun?
In fact, lightning can heat the air it passes through to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (
5 times hotter than the surface of the sun
). When lightning strikes a tree, the heat vaporizes any water in its path possibly causing the tree to explode or a strip of bark to be blown off.
Can lightning power a city?
Lightning is both incredibly powerful and crazy fast. While it's true that
a single lightning bolt could power the entire city of Santa Fe for about a minute
, there are some issues with capturing lightning as an energy source.
Why is lightning so loud?
It's because
the amount of electrical energy that flows from the cloud to the ground is so enormous
: it's like a very big waterfall of electricity. The louder the sound that you hear, the closer you are to the lightning. Light travels through air much faster than sound.
Why is lighting pink?
Elements in the air, such as nitrogen or oxygen
, can cause the lightning flash to take on a different color like pink or blue. We saw plenty of pink strikes Thursday evening.
Does red lightning exist?
Red lightning doesn't exist in the literal sense
, according to the National Weather Service. The closest known phenomena is something called a red sprite, which occurs high in the atmosphere “directly above an active thunderstorm,” NOAA says.
Can humans create thunderstorms?
Monday's storm was the first time that cloud seeding had been done by the Department of Public Works since 2002, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Yes, humans can actually modify the weather
and it's been going on for decades.
What is dark lightning?
Dark lightning is
a burst of gamma rays produced during thunderstorms by extremely fast moving electrons colliding with air molecules
. Researchers refer to such a burst as a terrestrial gamma ray flash.
What does Ball Lightning look like?
Ball lightning, according to observers, manifests as
a bright hissing orb of lightning ranging from 1 to 100 centimeters in diameter
that appears during thunderstorms, often levitating above the ground and moving regardless of wind intensity or direction.
