Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Material properties (size, color, texture) of fulgurites vary widely, depending on the size of the lightning bolt and the composition and moisture content of the surface struck by lightning. Most natural fulgurites fall on a spectrum from white to black. Iron is a common impurity that can result in a deep brownish-green coloration.
In fact, lightning can, and often does, strike the same place more than once. Lightning in a thunderstorm is more likely to strike objects and spots that are more prominent or conductive. For instance, lightning strikes the Empire State Building in New York City on average 23 times per year. [166] [167] [168]
Sympathetic lightning is the tendency of lightning to be loosely coordinated across long distances. Discharges can appear in clusters when viewed from space. [22] [23] [24] [clarification needed] Upward lightning or ground-to-cloud lightning is a lightning flash which originates from the top of a grounded object and propagates upward from this ...
The slight branching redness traveling up this person's leg was created by current from a nearby lightning strike. A Lichtenberg figure (German: Lichtenberg-Figur ), or Lichtenberg dust figure , is a branching electric discharge that sometimes appears on the surface or in the interior of insulating materials .
The Will o' the Wisp and the Snake by Hermann Hendrich (1854–1931). In folklore, a will-o'-the-wisp, will-o'-wisp, or ignis fatuus (Latin for 'foolish flame'; [1] pl. ignes fatui), is an atmospheric ghost light seen by travellers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes.
An incredible 30,000 lightning flashes were recorded in 2 hours – including 10,000 cloud-to-ground strikes. Hailstones up to 6 centimetres (2.4 in) across were observed in some places and wind gusts over 90 km/h (56 mph); in Melle near Ghent a gust of 101 km/h (63 mph) was reported.
Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes pose a challenge to current theories of lightning, especially with the discovery of the clear signatures of antimatter produced in lightning. [ 26 ] It has been discovered in the past 15 years that among the processes of lightning is some mechanism capable of generating gamma rays , which escape the atmosphere and ...
When a sufficiently large positive lightning strike carries charges to the ground, the cloud top is left with a strongly negative net charge. This can be modeled as a quasi-static electric dipole and for less than 10 milliseconds a strong electric field is generated in the region above the thunderstorm.