Lesson of the Week: Lightning

Here's are a couple of interesting tidbits about lightning. Did you ever notice that you hear lightning after you see it? In reality, both happen at the same time; however, light travels faster than sound. Lightning creates the sound called thunder by heating the air around it as it strikes. Of course, it does seem kind of weird seeing it before you hear it. I've noticed the same thing when I talk on a cell phone. If I'm looking at the person I'm talking to, their lips seem to be slightly ahead of the sound of the phone. Weird.

Also, did you know when we see lightning,it's on the way up? Lightning heads toward the ground with invisible negatively charged particles. Then, positively charged particles shoot back up to the sky. When they meet the negatively charged electrons are drawn to the ground. As a result, current flows from the ground to the sky and lights up forming lightning. So really, we are seeing the lightning coming from the ground, but it moves too fast for our brains to calculate.