Which way does lightning travel?: lightning: City of Fort Collins

Which Way does Lightning Travel?

A cloud-to-ground lightning strike begins as an invisible channel of electrically charged air moving from the cloud toward the ground. When one channel nears an object on the ground, a powerful surge of electricity from the ground moves upward to the cloud and produces the visible lightning strike!

This photo is of the monster hailstorm which devastated Cheyenne, Wyoming on August 1, 1985. The storm dropped 6 inches of rain in 3 hours. 12 people were killed and damages were estimated at $61 million. The photo was taken looking north near the towers on the road leading to Wellington, Colorado.

Click on the photo for a larger version. (33k jpeg)

Definitions and Introduction | What Causes Lightning? | Which Way does Lightning Travel? | Lightning Facts and Myths

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