INFO

Welcome to the "Info" section of my site. This page is full of info on lightning. If you are wondering what lightning is, stop. It's a river of electricity rushing through an ocean of air. Also, the word "lightning" is from the Middle English word "lightnen" and the Old English word "lihtan." Please come back and visit again!

KINDS OF LIGHTNING

• Intracloud lightning - One of the main kinds of lightning and it is the most common one. It occurs when lightning arcs between oppositely charged centers within the same cloud.
• Cloud-to-ground lightning - Also one of the main kinds of lightning. It is the most dangerous form of lightning and the kind we know most about.
• Intercloud lightning - Another one of the main kinds of lightning. It occurs when lightning leaps across a gap of clear air between two different clouds.
• Heat lightning - It occurs when it's hot.
• Summer lightning - It occurs in the summer.
• Sheet lightning - It seems to come in flat waves.
• Ribbon lightning - It looks like streamers flashing through the sky.
• Silent lightning - It appears without a sound because it is so far away.
• Colored lightning - It seems to flash red or blue.
• Ball lightning - It is a bright round spark that seems to float in the air.
• Elves - In the summer of 1995 this form of lightning was discovered by scientists. Elves are very bright, short flashes of lightning high above the clouds at the very edge of space. They last for less than a thousandth of a second. Their color is unknown but is thought to be green.
• Jets - Another recently discovered high-altitude lightning. Jets are fast-moving fountains or sprays of blue light that burst upward from the top of storm clouds to an altitude of about twenty miles above the clouds. Pilots have reported seeing columns of blue or green light above thunderheads for years, but have only recently been videotaped.
• Sprites - A recently discovered kind of lightning. One of the first true-color pictures of a red sprite was photographed at an altitude of sixty miles over a thunderstorm in the Midwest in July of 1994.