• Question: what causes lightining?

    Asked by sophiesweeneyx to Kate, Kieren, Nicola, Rowena, Roy on 14 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Kate Nicholson

      Kate Nicholson answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      A build up of charge in the atmosphere when two weather systems collide is the usual (but not only) cause. The lightning charge in the atmosphere will attract charge from the ground, and whenever these two charges get close enough they will meet, electricity quickly flows from the atmosphere to the earth and we see this as lightning, all in the fraction of a second.

    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      Build up if static electricity! Rain drops knock against each other and brush off electrons and eventually you get all this positive charge in the sky in clouds that haven’t dropped as rain yet. This charge wants to be neutralised and “earthed” so it eventually discharges as a lightning bolt.

      If there is something metal through which current can flow this will be the preferential path of the lightning to the ground.

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