Kentwood Mi 49508 Wanna see how thunder works read this. Alright, the reason I am doing this is because Dr Ron asked us an extra credit question about how the Lightning bolt forms. After doing some research on the Internet, I got some really interesting Ideas on how the lightning forms.
Lightning is complex.
The air at the lightning bolt is heated up tp 30,000 degrees, three times the temperature at the surface of the sun. The current varried in a lightning flash can be as high as 10,000 to 20,000 amps. The start of a lightning occurs with an intense electric field. THis field accelerates the few free ions in the atmosphere to very high velocities. These ions splash into molecules and atoms of oxygen and nitrogen and break them apart, creating even more ions and electrons.