Recently it was revealed by the World Meteorological Association that the longest recorded lightning bolt to strike the world was half a mile short of 200 miles (322 km) long, occurring in Oklahoma. The June 20, 2007 bolt was so long, it spanned nearly three-fourths of Oklahoma - the 20th largest state by area. The organization also announced that the longest living strike ever recorded occurred in France on August 30, 2012, at 7.74 seconds long.
Lightning is one of the most fascinating phenomenon in the Solar System, but what is it? It's an electrostatic discharge. The same stuff that zaps you when the carpet and your socks get too comfortable.
First off, you need warm and cold air, which help form clouds. Water droplets, ice crystals, and graupel (soft hail) collide in the cloud, creating positively charged particles at the top of the cloud and negatively charge particles at the bottom. An electric current called a stepped leader finds a path through the particles and the process of a lightning strike begins. The average lightning flash is 0.2 seconds and is made up of several shorter strokes, which last less than a millisecond.
70% of all lightning occurs in the tropics, and cloud-to-ground lighting, the most dramatic, is only about 25% of the lightning that occurs on Earth.
First off, you need warm and cold air, which help form clouds. Water droplets, ice crystals, and graupel (soft hail) collide in the cloud, creating positively charged particles at the top of the cloud and negatively charge particles at the bottom. An electric current called a stepped leader finds a path through the particles and the process of a lightning strike begins. The average lightning flash is 0.2 seconds and is made up of several shorter strokes, which last less than a millisecond.
70% of all lightning occurs in the tropics, and cloud-to-ground lighting, the most dramatic, is only about 25% of the lightning that occurs on Earth.
Lightning strikes the United States an average of 25 million times a year and the Democratic Republic of the Congo experiences the most strikes on Earth. Even the Empire State Building averages 23 strikes a year. An average of 49 people are killed in the United States every year by lightning. While the odds of getting struck by lightning in your lifetime is only 1 in 13,500 according to NOAA, you still shouldn't press your luck. Most people that are struck survive, but typically suffer permanent, life-long damage. Lightning may be cool to look at, but that's about all you want to do with it.
Since lightning moves at the speed of light, which is too fast for our eyes and brain to process, the strikes that we see are actually the reflections of the initial stroke. We typically perceive lightning as blue-white, but in reality lightning can be blue, red, yellow, purple, green, etc. The color of lightning depends on what is in the air, such as water vapor, hail, dust, pollution, etc. Latitude, humidity, winds, elevation, and seasons can also effect lightning. Lightning strikes are also around 5 times hotter than the surface of the Sun at around 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
You actually have a better chance of getting struck by lightning twice than winning the Powerball, and whoever told you that lightning can't strike twice lied to you. Not only can lightning strike twice - it usually does. Have you ever heard of Roy Sullivan? Probably not, but he holds the record for "the most amount of times to be struck by lighting" with seven. Yes, seven times over 35 years. Even his wife was struck once in his presence. Roy worked at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, so working around so many trees, which are lightning magnets (my neighbor's tree actually exploded from a strike), it makes sense. Still, the odds of getting struck seven times as he claimed? 4.15 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Since lightning moves at the speed of light, which is too fast for our eyes and brain to process, the strikes that we see are actually the reflections of the initial stroke. We typically perceive lightning as blue-white, but in reality lightning can be blue, red, yellow, purple, green, etc. The color of lightning depends on what is in the air, such as water vapor, hail, dust, pollution, etc. Latitude, humidity, winds, elevation, and seasons can also effect lightning. Lightning strikes are also around 5 times hotter than the surface of the Sun at around 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
You actually have a better chance of getting struck by lightning twice than winning the Powerball, and whoever told you that lightning can't strike twice lied to you. Not only can lightning strike twice - it usually does. Have you ever heard of Roy Sullivan? Probably not, but he holds the record for "the most amount of times to be struck by lighting" with seven. Yes, seven times over 35 years. Even his wife was struck once in his presence. Roy worked at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, so working around so many trees, which are lightning magnets (my neighbor's tree actually exploded from a strike), it makes sense. Still, the odds of getting struck seven times as he claimed? 4.15 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
As stated earlier, lighting is not exclusive to Earth. Lightning has been observed on Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Lightning does not exist on Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, because of its lack of a significant atmosphere. Scientists think they've even recorded lightning on exoplanet HAT-P-11b. In 2009, a lightning storm was observed on Saturn that had been going on for 9 months. And while it's very rare for lightning to strike the north and south poles of Earth, lightning has been clearly observed on Jupiter's. Lightning in the gas giants are believed to be hundreds to thousands of times more powerful than Earth's.
Ever heard of sprites? No not the soda, but the lightning? Sprites are electrical discharges that happen high above thunderstorms. Sprites typically appear reddish-orange, not lemon-lime, and occur in clusters 30-60 miles (50-90 km) above Earth. Elves and blue jets can't be left out either. All three are different forms of upper-atmospheric lighting. Blue jets are shaped like a cone and project from the top of cumulonimbus clouds 25-30 miles (40-50 km) above the Earth. Blue jets weren't recorded until 1989 and they are considered rare as less than 100 were seen between then and 2007. Elves are typically dim and flat and last for a millisecond. They occur in the ionosphere 62 miles (100 km) above the Earth. So are auroras technically lightning? Actually no, auroras are caused by solar wind in the magnetosphere, but I agree they look just as cool.
Heat lightning is actual lighting, the only difference is it is too far away for you to hear. You've most likely seen heat lightning before, even if you don't recall. And while we typically associate lightning with thunderstorms, it can actually form from volcanic eruptions and snow as well.
So remember, you may enjoy looking at lightning, but you don't want to go farther that. There are many myths out there about lightning, so study up and stay safe thanks to the NWS, How Stuff Works, and NBC News.
*Live Science, WNCN, Mental Floss, Space, Science News For Students, National Geographic, OSU Volcano World, Encyclopedia of atmospheric science, Wikipedia, Museum Victoria, NWS, NBC News, Hyperphysics, How Stuff Works, University of St. Andrews, Astrology Today, Mental Floss, Colour Lovers, CBS North Carolina, NASA, picture from Weather Underground Pinterest
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