The transfer of heat or other atmospheric properties by massive motion within the atmosphere, especially directed upward. Lightning in diffused or sheet form due to reflection and diffusion by the clouds and sky. Ninety percent of all lightning never touches the ground it occurs inside the thunder cloud or jumps from cloud to cloud. A single bolt can illuminate an entire cloud from the inside. We call this sheet lightning.
Sprites are immense.
They shoot up from the top of a 12-mile thundercloud to heights of 60 miles or more. Thin, luminous feelers, caused by electrical breakdown in a cloud, that move in short bursts, or steps, and precede lightning strikes. Here, thin, barely luminous feelers called step leaders zigzag through the cloud. The sound that follows a flash of lightning and is caused by sudden expansion of the air in the path of the electrical discharge. This explosive heat produces a massive, deafening shock wave thunder.