Lightning Facts

• Certain conditions with clouds make lightning


• Lightning is really a discharge of static electricity between the clouds and the ground or between different clouds.


• Lightning is unpredictable so it is very dangerous to people and animals.


• In deserts or during dry hot weather, lightning often occurs without any rain. The rain evaporates before it hits the ground.


• Since lightning is a jump of electricity from a cloud to the ground, lightning is known to strike the ground as far as 10 miles away from rainfall.


• Lightning can occur during a snowstorm.


• The amount of electricity in a bolt of lightning varies. As static electricity builds up in the clouds


• Can lighthing strike twice. The fact about lightning striking twice in one place is that it happens all the time. Tall building get struck all the time. Some of the largest building in the world, average getting struck by lightning more than once a day.


• During summer months when there are a lot of thunderstorms, lightning increases the amount of nitrogen oxide by 90 percent and ozone by 30 percent in the troposphere layer of the atmosphere.


• Scientists estimate that 80 to 90 percent of all lightning occurs over land. Air over the land is heated faster causing thunder clouds to form.


• Lightning strikes more closer to the equator, particularly in wet regions over land.


• Central Africa, Central and Eastern South America, the northwest tip of South America, Southeastern United States, Indonesia, Southeast Asia and parts of Indian have the most lightning strikes in the average year.


• Overall lightning occurs about 50 times a second world-wide. Not all these lightning bolts reach the ground though. Only about 10 lightning bolts strike the ground every second throughout the world.


• There are different colors of lightning. The air around the lightning bolt determines the color of the lightning. Lightning over the water or during a rainstorm is generally red. Lightning occurring in low humidity is often white. Blue lightning typically occurs during some of the most powerful storms. The blue coloring is from ice and hail in the sky.