Latest Lightning Stories

2012-03-13 09:04:47

Using an experimental apparatus reminiscent of a classic Frankenstein movie, French researchers have coaxed laboratory-generated lightning into striking the same place, not just twice, but over and over.

Next-Gen Weather Satellites To Improve Tornado Warnings
2012-03-01 04:39:16

When you read the following paragraph, consider the following: Tornado season hasn't even started yet.

RHESSI Mission Celebrates Ten Years And Forty Thousand X-Ray Flares
2012-02-11 04:00:56

Ten years since its launch, RHESSI has observed more than 40,000 X-ray flares, helped craft and refine a model of how solar eruptions form, and fueled additional serendipitous science papers on such things as the shape of the sun and thunder-storm-produced gamma ray flashes.

Image 1 - Lightning-Made Waves Leaking Into Space From Earth's Atmosphere
2011-11-29 10:08:34

NASA said on Monday that scientists have discovered lightning-made waves in Earth's atmosphere that leaked into space.

Lightning Sprites Are Out-of-This-World
2011-11-21 13:43:36

TAU researchers predict "sprites" in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus.

Researchers Create Extra-long Electrical Arcs Using Less Energy
2011-11-09 09:10:28

Researchers at the University of Canterbury, in New Zealand, have developed a new, lower-voltage method of generating extra-long, lightning-like electrical arcs.

Latest Lightning Reference Libraries

Weather Reference Library
2012-05-10 10:05:27

When we think of thunderstorms we have to remember the deadliest part of those storms and that is the lightning that occurs with them. Lightning is found in many forms. The first type of lightning is known as cloud to cloud meaning that the electric charge travels from one cloud to the other. The second type of lightning is the Cloud to Air meaning the lighting moves from the cloud and enters the clear air of the sky. A third type of lightning is the cloud to ground. This is the most...

2010-10-21 17:15:50

A lightning rod is a metal conductor mounted on the top of a building and connected through a wire to the ground to protect the building from lightning. The rod should conduct the electricity from a lightning strike down through the wire instead of passing through the building. The rod is just a single component in the lightning protections system along with rooftop conductors and multiple conductive paths. Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod in 1749. The taller the building the...

2009-07-21 16:27:18

Heat Lightning is actually faint flashes of lightning reflecting outward from distant thunderstorms. These flashes usually do not produce thunder as the storm is sometimes too far away to be heard. The term heat lightning got its name because it often occurs on hot summer nights and does not produce audible thunder. One reason heat lightning can be seen so far away is due to the reflection of the light bouncing off water particles in moist, humid air and as light is scattered throughout the...

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