An example of a single lightning flash making contact with the ground in 2 different places. Photo: Copyright Steve Hodanish.
As the atmosphere heats and cools. It expands and contracts, causing changes in pressure and air movement. Water droplets inside clouds have a positive electrical charge at the top of the cloud and a negative charge at the bottom.
When the negative charge comes near enough to an attracting positive charge on the Earth below or on another cloud, the electrical energy is released in a flash of light. There may also be a loud bang, called thunder, at the same time. This is caused by the air being heated to a tremendous temperature, and the explosive noise is when it expands suddenly.
However, as light travels faster through the air than sound, we see the lightning flash before hearing the thunder.
FACT:
Magnetic energy produced by vast storms on the Sun’s surface strikes the upper atmosphere of the Earth, producing patterns in the sky near the poles called the Northern Lights or aurora borealis.
