It doesn't take a severe storm to produce lightning. Even our garden variety storms will have enough lift to have lightning. Let's start with how lightning forms.
First you need warm rising air to lift a thunderstorm into the atmosphere.
Next, water and ice particles start to form inside the cloud and bump together.
All those collisions create positive and negative charges inside the cloud.
Those charged particles then go up if they are positive and down if they are negative. There are also particles that are positive charged on the ground.
Once enough energy builds up, that's when you get a strike. Lightning can happen inside the cloud from a positive charge at the top of a cloud to a negative charge at the bottom of the cloud.
As we know lightning doesn't always stay in the cloud we can get a strike from a negative charge at the base of the cloud to a positive charge on the ground. These kind of lightning strikes usually stay close to the storm.
Occasionally a lightning bolt can connect from the anvil of the storm (one of the highest points) to a negative charge on the ground. This can happen miles away from the storm and is called a "bolt from the blue" because skies could be clear directly overhead.
That is why lightning safety is so important. A good general rule to remember is: "when thunder roars, head indoors"
Here is a bonus fun fact for you. Did you know? Lightning is 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun?
It can be up to 50,000°! It exists in the 4th state of matter. We all know solids, liquids, and gases. Lightning is in a different category called plasma, which is super heated gas.
As we warm up heading into late spring and summer, thunderstorms will be more common. Be sure to pay attention to the forecast when thunderstorms are expected to develop and don't get caught off guard!
