Lightning is an average bolt of lightning carries a negative electric current of 40 kiloamperes (kA) (although some bolts can be up to 120 kA), and transfers a charge of five coulombs and 500 MJ, or enough energy to power a 100 watt lightbulb for just under two months. The voltage depends on the length of the bolt, with the dielectric breakdown of air being three million volts per meter; this works out to approximately one gigavolt (one billion volts) for a 300 m (1000 ft) lightning bolt. With an electric current of 100 kA, this gives a power of 100 terawatts However, lightning leader development is not a simple matter of dielectric breakdown, and the ambient electric fields required for lightning leader propagation can be a few orders of magnitude less than dielectric breakdown strength. Further, the potential gradient inside a well-developed return-stroke channel is on the order of hundreds of volts per meter or less due to intense channel ionization, resulting in a true power output on the order of megawatts per meter for a vigorous return-stroke current of 100 kA [14].

Positive lightning
See also: High_voltage#Lightning
Positive lightning, also known colloquially as a "bolt from the blue" makes up less than 5% of all lightning.[29] It occurs when the leader forms at the positively charged cloud tops, with the consequence that a negatively charged streamer issues from the ground. The overall effect is a discharge of positive charges to the ground. Research carried out after the discovery of positive lightning in the 1970s showed that positive lightning bolts are typically six to ten times more powerful than negative bolts, last around ten times longer, and can strike tens of kilometres/miles from the clouds.[30] The voltage difference for positive lightning must be considerably higher, due to the tens of thousands of additional metres/feet the strike must travel. During a positive lightning strike, huge quantities of ELF and VLF radio waves are generated.[31]

As a result of their greater power, positive lightning strikes are considerably more dangerous. At the present time, aircraft are not designed to withstand such strikes, since their existence was unknown at the time standards were set, and the dangers unappreciated until the destruction of a glider in 1999.[32]

Positive lightning is also now believed to have been responsible for the 1963 in-flight explosion and subsequent crash of Pan Am Flight 214, a Boeing 707.[citation needed] Subsequently, aircraft operating in U.S. airspace have been required to have lightning discharge wicks to reduce the chances of a similar occurrence. Positive lightning has also been shown to trigger the occurrence of upper atmosphere lightning. It tends to occur more frequently in winter storms and at the end of a thunderstorm.

An average bolt of positive lightning carries a current of up to 300 kA (kiloamperes) (about ten times as much current as a bolt of negative lightning), transfers a charge of up to 300 coulombs, has a potential difference up to 1 gigavolt (one billion volts), and lasts for hundreds of milliseconds, with a discharge energy of up to 300 GJ (gigajoules) (a billion joules).


Anvil-to-ground
One special type of cloud-to-ground lightning is anvil-to-ground lightning. It is a form of positive lightning, since it emanates from the anvil top of a cumulonimbus cloud where the ice crystals are positively charged. The leader stroke issues forth in a nearly horizontal direction until it veers toward the ground. These usually occur kilometers/miles from (often ahead) of the main storm and will sometimes strike without warning on a sunny day. An anvil-to-ground lightning bolt is a sign of an approaching storm, and if one occurs in a largely clear sky, it is known colloquially as a "Bolt from the blue."

Cloud-to-cloud
Multiple paths of cloud-to-cloud lightning, Swifts Creek, AustraliaLightning discharges may occur between areas of cloud having different potentials without contacting the ground. These are most common between the anvil and lower reaches of a given thunderstorm. This lightning can sometimes be observed at great distances at night as so-called "heat lightning". In such instances, the observer may see only a flash of light without thunder. The "heat" portion of the term is a folk association between locally-experienced warmth and the distant lightning flashes.

Dry lightning
Dry lightning is a folk misnomer in common usage in the United States for thunderstorms which produce no precipitation at the surface. This type of lightning is the most common natural cause of wildland fires. Dry Lightning may also be referred to as Heat Lightning.


Rocket lightningRocket Lightning, Queanbeyan, AustraliaIt is a form of cloud discharge, generally horizontal and at cloud base, with a luminous channel appearing to advance through the air with visually resolvable speed, often intermittently.[35]

Cloud-to-ground
Cloud-to-ground lightning is a great lightning discharge between a cumulonimbus cloud and the ground initiated by the downward-moving leader stroke. This is the second most common type of lightning, and poses the greatest threat to life and property of all known types.


Bead lightning
Bead lightning is a type of cloud-to-ground lightning which appears to break up into a string of short, bright sections, which last longer than the usual discharge channel. It is fairly rare. Several theories have been proposed to explain it; one is that the observer sees portions of the lightning channel end on, and that these portions appear especially bright. Another is that, in bead lightning, the width of the lightning channel varies; as the lightning channel cools and fades, the wider sections cool more slowly and remain visible longer, appearing as a string of beads.[37][38]


Ribbon lightning
Ribbon lightning occurs in thunderstorms with high cross winds and multiple return strokes. The wind will blow each successive return stroke slightly to one side of the previous return stroke, causing a ribbon effect.


Staccato lightning
Staccato lightning is nothing more than a leader stroke with only one return stroke.


Ground-to-cloud lightning
Ground-to-cloud lightning is a lightning discharge between the ground and a cumulonimbus cloud from an upward-moving leader stroke.


Ball lightning
Ball lightning is described as a floating, illuminated ball that occurs during thunderstorms. They can be fast moving, slow moving or nearly stationary. Some make hissing or crackling noises or no noise at all. Some have been known to pass through windows and even dissipate with a bang. Ball lightning has been described by eyewitnesses but rarely recorded by meteorologists.

Sprites
Main article: Upper-atmospheric lightning#Sprites
Sprites are now well-documented electrical discharges that occur high above some types of thunderstorms. They appear as luminous reddish-orange or greenish-blue, plasma-like flashes, last longer than normal lower stratospheric discharges (typically around 17 milliseconds), and are triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between the thundercloud and the ground.[31] Sprites often occur in clusters of two or more, and typically span the distance from 50 miles (80 km) to 90 miles (145 km) above the earth, with what appear to be tendrils hanging below, and branches reaching above. A 2007 paper reports that the apparent tendrils and branches of sprites are actually formed by bright streamer heads of less than 140 m diameter moving up or down at 1 to 10 percent of the speed of light.[44] The abstract is publicly accessible.[45][46][47]
Sprites may be horizontally displaced by up to 30 miles (48 km) from the location of the underlying lightning strike, with a time delay following the lightning that is typically a few milliseconds, but on rare occasions may be up to 100 milliseconds. Sprites are sometimes, but not always, preceded by a sprite halo, a broad, pancake-like region of transient optical emission centered at an altitude of about 47 miles (76 km) above lightning.[48] Sprite halos are produced by weak ionization from transient electric fields of the same type that causes sprites, but which are insufficiently intense to exceed the threshold needed for sprites. Sprites were first photographed on July 6, 1989 by scientists from the University of Minnesota. Several years after their discovery they were named after the mischievous sprite (air spirit) Puck in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream.

Blue jets
Blue jets differ from sprites in that they project from the top of the cumulonimbus above a thunderstorm, typically in a narrow cone, to the lowest levels of the ionosphere 25 miles (40 km) to 30 miles (48 km) above the earth.[citation needed] They are also brighter than sprites and, as implied by their name, are blue in color. They were first recorded on October 21, 1989, on a video taken from the space shuttle as it passed over Australia, and subsequently extensively documented in 1994 during aircraft research flights by the University of Alaska.[49][50][47]


Elves
Elves often appear as a dim, flattened, expanding glow around 250 miles (402 km) in diameter that lasts for, typically, just one millisecond.[52] They occur in the ionosphere 60 miles (97 km) above the ground over thunderstorms. Their color was a puzzle for some time, but is now believed to be a red hue. Elves were first recorded on another shuttle mission, this time recorded off French Guiana on October 7, 1990. Elves is a frivolous acronym for Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations From Electromagnetic Pulse Sources. This refers to the process by which the light is generated; the excitation of nitrogen molecules due to electron collisions (the electrons possibly having been energized by the electromagnetic pulse caused by a discharge from the Ionosphere).[47]


Triggered lightning

Rocket-triggered
Volcanic material thrust high into the atmosphere can trigger spectacular lightning.Lightning has been triggered directly by human activity in several instances. Lightning struck the Apollo 12 soon after takeoff, and has struck soon after thermonuclear explosions. It has also been triggered by launching lightning rockets carrying spools of wire into thunderstorms. The wire unwinds as the rocket ascends, providing a path for lightning. These bolts are typically very straight due to the path created by the wire.

Volcanically-triggered
Extremely large volcanic eruptions, which eject gases and material high into the atmosphere, can trigger lightning. This phenomenon was documented by Pliny The Elder during the AD79 eruption of Vesuvius, in which he perished.

Extraterrestrial lightning
Lightning requires the electrical breakdown of a gas, so it cannot exist in a visual form in the vacuum of space. However, lightning has been observed within the atmospheres of other planets, such as Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. Lightning on Venus is still a controversial subject after decades of study. During the Soviet Venera and U.S. Pioneer missions of the 1970s and '80s, signals suggesting lightning may be present in the upper atmosphere were detected.[63] However, recently the Cassini-Huygens mission fly-by of Venus detected no signs of lightning at all.