Thunder

We just learned about the Lightning Rod

Another part of lightning storms is Thunder

We know that lightning coming down from the sky is really hot, and that it is excited electrons zapping down as plasma.

The change in temperature and pressure as the lightning is zapping the ground causes the air around it to get pushed out really really fast.
That pushing of all the air around it creates what is called a shockwave that makes a huge sound which is the thunder we hear.

(from: wikipedia - thunder)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Obsidian

Lightning Rod

We just learned about Lightning striking Trees

Sometimes when people want to protect buildings from getting hit by lightning, they will put a tall metal pole on the top of their building, connected to metal all the way down to the ground.

Lightning electricity goes after the tallest and most conductive thing to strike, so it will hit the lightning rod and go straight through to the ground and not hurt the building.


(from: wikipedia - lightning rod)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Silicon

Lightning Strikes - Trees

We just learned about Lightning Plasma

When lightning strikes, it looks for the tallest things around to zap.

Trees get hit by lightning a lot, and sometimes having tall trees around a house can keep it from getting hit by lightning.

The gooey stuff inside of a tree is called sap. Some trees like maple trees make enough sap to make syrup that you can use on pancakes.

When a tree gets struck by lightning, that sap gets so hot that it turns into steam, and the steam blows out of the tree and blows off the bark on the outside of the tree.


(from: wikipedia - lightning strike)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Silver

Lightning Plasma

We just learned about a Lightning - Re-strike

Remember that the four types of matter on our planet are solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
And plasma is like a gas that is really excited and full of energy.

When lightning discharges, the temperature changes very quickly as the lightning energy zaps to the ground in an energy filled plasma.

(from: wikipedia - lightning)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Gold

Lightning - Re-strike

We just learned that when the lightning electricity zaps down or discharges it's called the Return Stroke.

Most of the time when lightning zaps down in a lightning strike it is not just one zap, it is anywhere from 3 to 30!
The flashes are so fast sometimes it looks like a flashing strobe light.

After the first return stroke, the other zaps are called re-strikes.

(from: wikipedia - lightning)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Mercury

Lightning - Return Stroke

When the lightning leaders attach, the lightning zaps down in something called a discharge, and the discharge is called a return stroke.

The electrons all come zapping down from the cloud, and it has about 30,000 amps!
The current in amps that comes from a regular plug in the wall is about 20 amps, so a lightning strike is like 1,500 plugs!


(from: wikipedia - lightning)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Copper

Lightning Attachment

We've learned about lightning downward leaders and upward streamers.

When the downward and upward touch together, that's called attachment.

When they attach, the electricity goes all the way from the cloud, through the downward leader, through the upward streamer, and into the ground.


(from: wikipedia - lightning)

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Lead

Lightning Upward Streamers

We've learned about negative charged lightning leaders, and how they are ionized gases going down toward the ground looking to zap something.

Sometimes there are positive charges on the ground that are going up looking to get zapped.
These are called upward streamers or upward leaders.

If there is a positive charge on the ground, it will reach out from the tallest points, either a tall building or a tree top, reaching up to the downward leaders.
If the two connect, there is a huge lightning zap!


(from: wikipedia - lightning)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Sodium

Lightning Leaders

We just learned about Cloud to Cloud Lightning

When a cloud is all full of energy and ready to zap the ground with some electricity and make Cloud to Ground Lightning, it starts shooting out things that are called leaders.

We learned before about the tiny particles called atoms, and we learned that they can have extra positive or extra negative energy, called Ions.
When all the little tiny atoms in the cloud get charged up, or ionized with energy, the negative and positive ionized gases in the cloud go in different directions.

The negative ionized gas starts moving down toward the ground, and the positive ionized gas moves up toward the sky.

These negative ionized gases moving down are the leaders.
They all get kind of crazy and go in different directions, they zig zag and split into different parts called branches as they move toward the ground.

When they get to the ground, all those crazy ions turn into a huge bolt of electricity and zap the ground.

(from: wikipedia - lightning)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Aluminum

Cloud to Ground Lightning

We learned about cloud to cloud and intra-cloud lightning.

The other type of lightning that we all know about is called Cloud to Ground lightning, sometimes just called CG lightning.

Electric charges build up in clouds, usually between tiny ice crystals and tiny water droplets that smash into each other.
When this happens to a whole bunch of them at once there is a lot of electricity that needs to go somewhere, so it zaps all the way down to the ground.

(from: wikipedia - lightning)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Iron

Cloud to Cloud Lightning

When we think of lightning, we usually think of the big bright flashes coming from the cloud.
But sometimes lightning doesn't come down to the ground, it just goes to another cloud.

That is called Cloud to Cloud lightning, or sometimes if it's just inside the same cloud it's called intra-cloud lightning.
Sometimes people just use the letters CC for cloud to cloud, or IC for intra-cloud.


(from: wikipedia - lightning)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Graphite

Lightning

We just learned about Fog.

Lightning is the big flash of light that we see in the sky when some static electricity in a cloud builds up and then zaps either another cloud or the ground.

We only see lightning in our area when there is a storm, but every second of every day there is a storm somewhere on planet earth.
If you could look at the whole planet earth all at once and count every single lightning, you would count about 1,400,000,000 (1.4 billion) flashes per year!
Lightning happens over 40 times every second on earth. Not all in one place, but spread out across the world.


(from: wikipedia - lightning)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Diamond

Fog

We've learned that when the air is full of water vapor that is called humidity.
And we learned that the Dew Point is the temperature when water vapor turns into water droplets.

When the air close to the earth is very humid, and the temperature is very close to the dew point, it can turn into fog.
Fog is just like a big cloud full of water vapor and tiny water droplets.

If the temperature drops, then the water droplets may turn into rain.
If the temperature rises, then the water droplets will evaporate into the air.


(from: wikipedia - fog)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Quartz

Snowflake

We just learned about Sleet.

Snow is another type of frozen precipitation that falls from clouds just like hail and sleet.

Snow forms in clouds that are full of tiny ice crystals.

The tiny ice crystals all bump into each other and stick to each other in funny ways.
Small differences in temperature and humidity make the snowflakes come in all shapes and sizes.


(from: wikipedia - snowflake)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Feldspar

Sleet

We just learned that hail is large ice chunks that come down from clouds.

Sometimes the pieces of ice are very small, and we call that Sleet or sometimes ice pellets.

The sleet happens when there is cold air way up high in the sky, then warm air in the middle and cold air on the bottom.
The clouds in the cold air make snow which falls down.
When it goes down into the middle of the sky where the air is warm, the snowflakes melt and turn into rain drops.
Then when the rain drops fall to the lowest part of the sky where it is cold again, they re-freeze but turn into sleet ice pellets instead of snow flakes.

(from: wikipedia - ice pellets)


There is also another type of frozen pellet that is a lot like sleet, called Graupel.

This is when there are super cold drops of water called "rime" fall onto snowflakes as they are falling down.
The super cold rime hits the snowflake and puts a coat of ice all around it.

If the rime doesn't hit a snowflake, it will instantly freeze when it hits where it lands, like a tree or on the ground.




(from: wikipedia - graupel)

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Pyrite

Hail

We just learned that rain happens when enough water vapor collects in a cloud and it falls to the ground as water.

If there is a thunderstorm cloud and the air in the sky is cold enough, this can cause hail.

The water in the clouds freezes and turns to very small bits of ice.
In a cumulonimbus cloud with a lot of strong wind blowing up, the small bits of ice will keep getting blown back up into the sky and then falling down, getting more and more ice on them until they are too big and heavy to get blown back up and they fall down to the ground.

Hail can be as small as tiny pebble or larger than a golf ball!


(from: wikipedia - hail)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Minerals

Rain

We just learned about the Anemometer that measures wind speed.

We know that clouds are tiny little drops of water and water vapor floating around in the sky.

When those tiny little drops of water get bigger and bigger from more air vapor and from bumping into each other, after a while they get so heavy they can't stay up in the sky anymore and they fall out of the clouds.

This is rain!

(from: wikipedia - rain)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Petoskey Stone

Anemometer

We just learned about the huge storm clouds called Roll Clouds.
Many people have jobs where they work to try and predict the weather and different types of storms.
A very important thing to measure is wind speed.

The tool used to measure wind speed is called the Anemometer.
The first anemometers that were invented were small cups on a stick that spun around, and counted how many times it spun around per minute.
Some later anemometers look more like an airplane with a propeller and a tail, and they can tell wind direction and speed.

(from: wikipedia - wind speed)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Mudstone

Roll Clouds

We just learned about Shelf Clouds.

Another type of storm cloud is called a Roll Cloud.

It is a low tube shaped cloud that is usually all by itself and not connected to any other clouds.
They look like they are rolling along the sky, like a long tube.

(from: wikipedia - arcus cloud)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Pumice

Shelf Clouds

We just learned about Cloud Étages

Some clouds only come around during big storms. One of these types of clouds is called a shelf cloud.

Usually when you see a shelf cloud, it is a low sideways wedge cloud right at the edge of a thunderstorm.
The upper part looks like a rising cloud, and the bottom part looks like a wild windy blowing storm.


(from: wikipedia - arcus cloud)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Slate