Each delivers about 1 trillion watts of electricity in manner of microseconds. The highly conductive lightning channel heats the air to over 15,000 deg. Lightning also is one of the most beautiful and mysterious events in nature, something to admire, from a safe distance - and to study in detail.
Lightning is as deadly as it is beautiful.
Scientists attending this conference study thunderstorms, lightning and other electrical properties of the atmosphere. This will be the first time that the conference has been held in the Southeast. The GHCC fits that criterion since its scientists are among the world leaders in the field of atmospheric electricity and revolutionized the field of spaced-based lightning observations from well before the GHCC was founded in 1994. Beginning in 1980, scientists from this group have studied lightning and thunderstorm from NASA's ER-2 high altitude aircraft and later from the Space Shuttle. In the Mesoscale Lightning Experiment, the Shuttle 's payload bay cameras observed lightning on the nightside of the Earth during crew sleep periods.