Thunder & Lightning, by Mick

Lightning and thunder are two of the many beauties of nature.

All of us have seen the bolts of light in the sky, and the boom of thunder coming right after it. There are more than a thousand thunderstorms in the world during every minute causing thousands of flashes all around the globe!!

The science of lightning is very simple if you look at it one way, and pretty complicated if you look at it another way. In simple terms lightning is the discharge of static electricity built up from rising and falling currents of air rubbing up against each other.

Alright, now let’s get a little more complicated. When ice and water droplets fall, they take electrons with them to the lower portion of the cloud causing that area to become negatively charged, as the upper portion of the cloud becomes positively charged.

Most of the energy is dissipated within the cloud as the lightning just finds it easier to flash between the negatively and positively charged parts of the cloud, instead of going for the earth. Sometimes though, when the negative charge in the cloud is big enough, it reaches for the positively charged ground below resulting in the iconic lightning bolt. Before the actual lightning happens, the negative charge in the cloud above sends out a scout charge, called a stepped leader to find a good connector of electricity like a tree, for instance.  When that negative stepped leader gets close enough to the ground, a positively charged streamer reaches up for it. When the connection is made between the two currents a return stroke goes from the ground to the clouds in a bolt of lightning. Lightning looks like it is one continuous flash, but it is actually a short series of flashes that are over within half a second.

The reason that thunder always comes after lightning is because the thunder is created by the lightning!! The extremely powerful and hot bolt of lightning heats the air around it to a tremendous temperature. The air around the lightning bolt is heated up hotter then the surface of the sun (54,000 degrees Fahrenheit) and expands rapidly creating a shock wave. These shock waves come in bursts, like the lightning, and this is why thunder seems to “rumble”.

The reason for me writing this post is because, in Addo Elephant Park, in South Africa, we experienced the most intense thunder and lightning storm in my life. The lightning was pink (due to the local atmospheric conditions, filtering the white light from the bolt, into a redder color due to the smog, dust, and other things).

Some of the bolts just went from cloud to cloud, but most of them touched the ground. Along with the impressive lightning, the thunder was extremely loud as well – one of the thunder claps actually shook the house!

Until next time, Mick