How is electricity produced in lightning?

Answer 1

In storm clouds, tiny particles in the cloud move around picking up positive or negative energy charges, like when shoes scuff a rug. The positive charged particles stay light, and rise to the top of the cloud. The negative charged particles get heavier, and collect at the bottom of the cloud.

As more particles become charged, they divide into opposing groups in the cloud. When the power of attraction between them gets too great, the particles discharge their energy at each other, completing a path for electricity to travel through the air. We call this flow of electricity lightning.

It's the negative charges in the bottom of the cloud that cause lightning to strike the ground. When the negatively charged particles group together, they begin to seek out positive charges from the ground below. The excess electrons create a channel of charged air called a leader that reaches down to the ground below. The leaders attract other charged ground-based channels called streamers.

When the stepped leader from the cloud meets a returning streamer from the ground, the path is ready. An electrical current called the return stroke, travels back up the path. This return stroke releases tremendous energy, bright light and thunder.

The typical stroke can last only 30 milliseconds, so four to five strokes may happen in the blink of an eye. Despite the old saying, lightning does strike the same place twice.

In storm clouds, tiny particles in the cloud move around picking up positive or negative energy charges, like when shoes scuff a rug. The positive charged particles stay light, and rise to the top of the cloud. The negative charged particles get heavier, and collect at the bottom of the cloud.As more particles become charged, they divide into opposing groups in the cloud. When the power of attraction between them gets too great, the particles discharge their energy at each other, completing a path for electricity to travel through the air. We call this flow of electricity lightning.It's the negative charges in the bottom of the cloud that cause lightning to strike the ground. When the negatively charged particles group together, they begin to seek out positive charges from the ground below. The excess electrons create a channel of charged air called a leader that reaches down to the ground below. The leaders attract other charged ground-based channels called streamers.When the stepped leader from the cloud meets a returning streamer from the ground, the path is ready. An electrical current called the return stroke, travels back up the path. This return stroke releases tremendous energy, bright light and thunder.The typical stroke can last only 30 milliseconds, so four to five strokes may happen in the blink of an eye. Despite the old saying, lightning does strike the same place twice.To review, lightning is created by the attraction between opposite charges, the same force that creates static electricity. But lightning uses huge opposite charges to produce an electrical current that's nothing like what you'd get from static electricity.

Answer 2

Electricity is produced in lightning due to the separation of electric charges within a thundercloud. As ice particles collide in the cloud, positive and negative charges become separated. The buildup of these charges creates an electric field that eventually discharges as lightning, resulting in a sudden flow of electricity between the cloud and the ground.

Answer 3

As clouds are formed and circulate, negatively and positively charged ions segregate within the cloud. Lightning is the discharge of this ionization energy from cloud to cloud or to the Earth's surface. Normally lightning involves the negatively-charged ions at the bottom of a cloud, which discharge to objects on the ground which have accumulated a positive charge. The discharge is normally across air, which when dry does not readily conduct ionic flow. The mechanism for lightning includes a "step leader" of positive ions, which establishes a lower-resistance channel for the more energetic negative ions to flash back to the ground. More rarely, a large discharge of positive ions may flow directly to negatively-charged ground. Benjamin Franklin theorized that lightning could be prevented or directed to the ground by establishing a safer, ready path for such discharges, which is a lightning rod. A metal bar atop a structure is connected to a large-gauge conducting wire from the rod to the ground.
A single lightning bolt may consist of several of downward and upward releases of energy within less than a second.

Answer 4

It is produced by collections of positive and negative charges in the air, in clouds, and on the ground. Lightning is a discharge of electrical current from one location to another, either cloud-to-cloud or cloud-to-ground.

Answer 5

As water droplets bump in to each other and increase in size they become so strong that electricity runs through the air between the cloud and the ground in the form of a giant spark or lightning bolt

Answer 6

When warm and cold air collide, it brings together ice crystals and water droplets. They rub together and create static electricity. The positive ions go to the top of the cloud, while the negative ions go to the bottom. When enough negative ions gather together, the cloud gives off energy to a positively charged place, and it takes the form of lightning.

Answer 7

A lightning is an electrical discharge - so, basically, a large-scale spark - between clouds and Earth, or between clouds. There is permanent a voltage of several million volts between the upper atmosphere and the ground.

Answer 8

due to the friction between ice particles and water droplets, the ice lose electrons to the water droplets which causes the electrostatic shock and lightning is produced

Answer 9

lightning is made when cold air and warm air clash together

Answer 10

positive and negative charges move from the clowd to the earth with the fome of lightning