Lightning is one of the most deadly natural phenomena’s known to man. It has
temperatures hotter than the sun (a few thousand degrees) and shockwaves that go in all
different directions for miles .How lightning works it common knowledge. It’s common
to know that lightning is formed in electrically charged storm systems. However, the
method of cloud charging still remains elusive. In an electrical storm the storm clouds are
charged like giant capacitors in the sky. The top part of the cloud is positive and the
bottom part is negative. How the cloud gathers this energy is still not agreed in the
science community. In the process of the water cycle, moisture can collect in the
atmosphere. The collection is what we see as a cloud. Interestingly, the clouds can
contain billions of water droplets and ice suspended in the air. As the process of
evaporation (absorbing) and condensation (falling) continues, the droplets collide other
moisture that is in the process as it rises. Also, the rising moisture that is in the process of
condensing as it rises. Also, the rising water droplets may interfere with ice or sleet that is
in the process of falling to the earth or located in the lower portion of the cloud. The need
of these collisions is that electrons are broken off of the rising water droplets, then
creating a charge separation. As the collisions and freezing continue to happen and the
charges at the top and bottom of the cloud increase, the electric field becomes more and
more intense—so intense that the electrons at the earth’s surface are repelled deeper into
the earth by the strong negative charge at the bottom part of the cloud. This repulsion of
electrons causes the earth’s surface to acquire a strong positive charge.