Friday, 25 May, 2012

New instruments are giving a better view of how those astonishingly strong lightning bolts form inside clouds – and we are also getting a better picture of the many ways that lightning can harm us.

How can we determine how far away lightning is? Make your own lightning Because of the vast differences in the speed of light and the speed of sound, the flash of lightning precedes the rumble of thunder. It takes sound waves five seconds to travel one mile, whereas the flash of lightning travels the same [...]

How many lightning bolts hit Wisconsin each year? Multiple cloud-to-ground lightning captured by C. Clark for NOAA with time-lapse photography. Wisconsin gets hit by lightning about 300,000 times a year; most of that during the spring and summer. That’s about five flashes for each square mile in the state. For about 20 years, the continental [...]

Light on Lightning! Danger! Sound moves about 1,000 feet per second through air. To find out how far away the storm is, start counting “1 one-thousand, 2 one-thousand…” when you see a flash. Five counts, or five seconds, equals about one mile. But lightning bolts don’t come just from the center of the storm. To [...]