Thunder and Lightning

Thunder is created by lightning. Lightening is a discharge of electricity. The air

around the lightning heats the air forming a channel with temperatures of 30,000 K.
This sudden expansion of the air creates the shock wave we hear as thunder. Lightning
may jump from cloud to ground, stay within the same cloud or storm, or may jump
from cloud to cloud.

A simplistic model is that the bottom of the thunderstorm carries a negative (-) charge
while the top of the thunderstorm carries a positive (+) charge. The ground below the
storm also develops a + charge. The real question is how the separation of charges
occurs. How are these tremendous differences in electrical potential created? The answer
is the freezing of water to form ice crystals.

The thermo-electric effect is a process in freezing water that helps explain the separation
of changes. Ice crystals in the process of freezing will have a colder edge (-5 C) and a
warmer center or core (0 C). This thermal gradient also creates an electrical gradient as
electrons flow form colder to warmer areas. Since electrons carry a charge, the ice
crystal then has a negatively charged core and a positively charged outer edge. As the
crystal totally freezes, it shatters. Many smaller pieces (that were once the outer edge)
now carry a + charge. The core remains as a much larger piece that now has a negative
charge. The smaller pieces are carried upward in the storm updrafts toward the top which
develops the + charge. The larger core pieces concentrate at the bottom of the storm
and it develops a charge.

-5
-5 0 -5 Temperature Gradient within the water droplet.
-5 0 -5
-5
 ++
++ -- +
+ -- ++ Migration of charges along the temperature gradient.
+

+ +
++ --- +
+ - - - ++ Droplet freezes and shatters. Smaller pieces along
++ edge have positive charges and are carried upward
by convection.
++
Larger interior piece carries negative charges and
remain at the bottom of the cloud.

The micro physics of the separation of charges within the thunderstorm are not well
understood, but it is clearly linked to the freezing of water within the storm. For
lightning to occur, the cloud must be less than - 15 C. (5 F.) and must be precipitating.
The separation of charges is linked to the formation of Graupel (soft hail) and
convection within the storm. These are usually smaller than a centimeter in size. Super
cooled water droplets freeze on impact with graupel. Graupel tends to have a net
negative charge and their size insures that they will accumulate in the bottom of the storm
while the positively charged ice crystals are much smaller and are carried upward in the
storm via convective updrafts.

Since like charges repel and opposite charges attract, a positive charge develops in the
ground below the storm. When a lightning bolt jumps form one place to another, it
originates in an area of negative charge and moves to an area of positive charge. The
flow of electricity between the two then reduces some of the difference in electrical
potential. Electricity may flow up and down the channel several times in the course of a
single lightning strike.

There is also at least some evidence that the development of electrical activity in the
cloud greatly accelerates the agglomeration of many (thousands of) small, microscopic
water droplets into a rain drop large enough to fall from the cloud.
Types of Lightning
Heat Lightning glow over horizon too far away to hear thunder.
Sheet Part of cloud lights up.
Forked Lightning divides into branches below cloud.
Leader stroke First strike trying to establish a channel to the ground.
Return Streamer A charge that moves from the ground up to the cloud through the
channel established by the leader stroke.
Streak Cloud-to-ground strike in a fairly straight channel.
Ribbon Cloud-to-ground strike appears as parallel luminous streaks from a cloud
moving quickly in a high wind.
Stepped -- Lightning strike moving toward the ground in a series of horizontal steps.
When viewed end-on, it might look like bright beads on a string called bead
lightning.
Bolt from the Blue Lightning strike when no thunderstorm seems to be near by.
Ball - A longer lasting form of lightning described as something between baseball and
basketball size that often appears to roll along or near the ground and may make a
hissing sound.

A Personal Account of Ball Lightning by Graham K. Hubler from Nature, 2000.

I saw ball lightning during a thunderstorm in the summer of 1960. I was 16 years old. It
was about 9:00 p.m., very dark, and I was sitting with my girlfriend at a picnic table in a
pavilion at a public park in upstate New York. The structure was open on three sides and
we were sitting with our backs to the closed side. It was raining quite hard. A whitish-
yellowish ball, about the size of a tennis ball, appeared on our left. 30 yards away, and its
appearance was no directly associated with a lightning strike. The wind was light. The
ball was 8 feet off the ground and drifting slowly toward the pavilion. As it entered, it
dropped abruptly to the wet wood plank floor, pausing within 3 feet of our heads on the
way down. It skittered along the floor with a jerky motion (stick-slip), passed out of the
structure on the right, rose to a height of 6 feet, drifted 10 yards further, dropped to the
ground and extinguished non-explosively. As it passed my head, I felt no heat. Its
acoustic mission liken to that of a freshly struck match. As it skittered on the floor it
displayed elastic properties (a physicist would call them resonant vibrating modes). Its
luminosity was such that it was not blinding. I estimate it was like staring at a less than
10 watt light bulb. The whole encounter lasted for about 15 seconds. I remember it
vividly even today, as all eyewitnesses do, because it was so extraordinary. Not until 10
years later, at a seminar on ball lightning, did I realize what I had witnesses.