Formation of lightning in terms of opinion dynamics in three dimension
  Formation of a lightning within a cloud, between clouds and towards the earth is studied as an application of sociophysics. The three dimensional society is sky or cloud, which has members as electrically charged clouds (in sky) or patches (in cloud). Members interact with the neighboring ones and all are convinced to average their charges (opinion). Yet, big external drives (mass media) as winds and turbulences may load new charges or may force the present ones to accumulate temporally at a site. For a lightning towards the earth, similarly charged clouds in sky (patches carrying big charges in a cloud) are expected to come close to each other. In all, discharging process is nothing, but what is called lightning. 
Caglar Tuncay