Does Lightning Travel Up Or Down

Positive lightning is less common than negative lightning and on average makes up less than 5 of all lightning strikes.

Does lightning travel up or down. Objects on the ground generally have a positive charge under a typical thunderstorm. Interestingly the actual size of the lightning strike is only about the size of a one penny piece across the actual pathway that the electricity comes down. The turbulent wind environment of a thunderstorm with its updrafts and downdrafts is an ideal environment to separate electric charges.

Lightning can travel both up and down. Up to down when one channel of electrical charged air moves near an object a surge of electricity travels upward from the ground to the cloud and produces the visible lightning. V I Z.

A direct lightning strike on a conductor of a power line causes extremely high voltage pulses at the strike point which are propagated as traveling waves in either direction from the point of strike. Do NOT bathe shower wash dishes or have any other contact with water during a thunderstorm because lightning can travel through a buildings plumbing. It will make a flash of lightning.

As it nears the ground it induces enormous quantities of positive charge in the earth especially at the tips of tall objects. These discharges into space are a new subject of study and are called sprites. It will also heat the air.

So does the lightning strike down or up. The stepped leader carries tons of negative charge As it nears the ground it induces enormous quantities of positive charge in. The main bolt or stroke will go back up to the cloud.

Does lightning travel up or down It actually does both. Over the last twenty years scientists have discovered that lightning also shoots upward out of the top of thunderstorms into the upper atmosphere. Scientists also agree that a developing storm must produce ice for it to form lightning.