• Question: What causes lightning?

    Asked by yooda to Bob, Katie, Nisha, Sallie, Vee on 28 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by devan, mashal.
    • Photo: Sallie Baxendale

      Sallie Baxendale answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      Thunder and lightening are the same thing – we just hear thunder after lightening because sound travels much more slowly than light. Lightening is the discharge of electricty in a cloud – either to another cloud or to the ground. At any given moment, there are approximately 1,800 thunderstorms occurring over the Earth. It is estimated that 100 lightning flashes occur each second somewhere on the Earth, adding up to nearly 8 million lightning flashes per day. During your lifetime, you have a one in 600,000 chance of being struck by lightning.

    • Photo: Bob Bonwick

      Bob Bonwick answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      Static electricity in the clouds discharging on to the ground so I’m to understand.

    • Photo: Vee Mitchell

      Vee Mitchell answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Static charge is built up in the clouds from the frozen rain drops colliding with each other. The static discharges to the ground as lightening.

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