Lightning is one of the most powerful, beautiful, and amazing phenomenas that exists on Earth. The question is what is it and where does it come from? How much does the Greek god Zues play a role in it? Is it a living creature?
Well for all of the Greek mythology guru's Zeus has nothing to do with lightning. For all of the Syfy junkies lightning is not a living creature as much as Kevin Sorbo would like to believe it to be. Lightning is a large scale version of us rubbing our sock covered feet on carpet and touching someone to shock them. It is an atmospheric discharge created by the friction of water molecules being forced to clash against ice crystals creating a positive charge. These charges create an immense amount of electricity that can sometimes reach the ground, but most of the time it doesn't. Lightning has 3 amazing factors to it that truly make it a spectacular phenomena to see. It can travel at speeds of 140,000 mph, reach temperatures has hot as 54,000°F, and carry as much electricity as 1 trillion watts!! These are some incredible statistics about a single bolt of lightning that is just the version of static electricy to the atmosphere.
This is faster than a space shuttle (100,000 mph), over 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun (9941°F), and could supply Beijing, China, the world's largest city, with electricity for 77 days straight. Beijing uses about 13 billion watts in a day. This is all from one bolt of lightning.
Now let's make things a little more interesting and say lightning comes in various forms and colors. Yes, I said colors. Lightning is typically categorized as either cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-air, or cloud-to-ground. What each category means is rather simple. Cloud-to-cloud lightning is lightning that starts in a cloud and ends in a cloud. Cloud-to-air lightning is lightning that starts in a cloud and ends in the air. Cloud-to-ground lightning, the deadliest lightning, starts in a cloud and ends at the ground. Cloud-to-ground lightning is unique because it is common for the lightning bolt in the clouds to not reach the ground all the way, but what causes the ones that don't reach the ground all the way to strike the surface is when electricity from the surface reaches upward to the main lightning bolt and completes the entire lightning strike. There are far more other types of lightning such as the rare "ball lightning", the so-called "heat lightning", a positive flash, and even upper-atmospheric lightning that creates optical phenonemas known as sprites, elves, and blue jets.
So what's up with lightning having a color? Interestingly enough, lightning will have a distinct color to it based upon the surrounding environment. The main colors are red, blue, yellow, and white. Now keep in mind these colors are not like the shade of yellow on a school bus or the shade of red of a stop sign or the shade of blue like police lights. These are more color tints to the lightning.
What do these colors mean? If you see lightning that appears red then there is rain in the cloud. If it appears blue then there is hail in the cloud. If it appears yellow then there is significant amount of dust particles in the air. Finally, if it appears white, the most commonly seen color, then there is low humidity in the air.
Now you know some interesting facts and information about lightning.
Try not to get struck.
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