How Does Lightning Travel Through Air?

When lightning strikes the Earth, it consists of more than one electrical discharge. These electrical discharges are called stroke. The brilliant flash of light that is seen in a flash of lightning is called a return stroke. These return strokes travel at about the same speed as that of light (that is, approximately 299, 792 kilometres per second).

A distinctive flash of lightning involves a likely difference between the cloud and the ground. This potential difference in the voltage between the cloud and the ground could be to the tune of several hundred million volts. The peak currents are of the order of about 20, 000 amperes. The temperatures in the channels reach upto a maximum of about 30, 000 Kelvin. Air is heated instantly when an electrical charge of lightning passes through it. The heat either causes the molecules of air to expand or to fly out in all directions.

Each and everything around us comprises of atoms, even though atoms are generally electrically neutral, they may turn negative or positive if they release or gain atoms.

Lighting is a type of visible electric discharge which takes place between rain cloud and earth. This release is visible as a luminous arc. Lightning which strikes the surface of the earth comprises of one or more electrical discharges known as strokes. The bright light which is visible as a burst of lightning is known as the return stroke.

The blaze of cloud-to-ground lightning is started off by the neutralization of the little net-positive charge in the lowest section of the cloud. The total amount of seconds between the seeing the lightning flash and being able to hear the thunder, separated by three, tells the total space of the lighting from the observer in kilometres.