What is lightning? How is lightning produced between cloud in the sky?
Why does lightning usually striked the tall buildings ?
Answers
Lightning is a sudden electrostatic discharge that occurs typically during a thunderstorm. This discharge occurs between electrically charged regions of a cloud, between two clouds, or between a cloud and the ground.
When the ground is hot, it heats the air above it. This warm air rises. As the air rises, water vapour cools and forms a cloud. When air continues to rise, the cloud gets bigger and bigger. In the tops of the clouds, temperature is below freezing and the water vapour turns into ice.
Now, the cloud becomes a thundercloud. Lots of small bits of ice bump into each other as they move around. All these collisions cause a build up of electrical charge.
Eventually, the whole cloud fills up with electrical charges. Lighter, positively charged particles form at the top of the cloud. Heavier, negatively charged particles sink to the bottom of the cloud.
When the positive and negative charges grow large enough, a giant spark - lightning - occurs between the two charges within the cloud. This is like a static electricity sparks you see, but much bigger.
Tall buildings, trees generally absorb the lightning before it reaches to the ground and becomes neutral. In other words, lightning is absorbed by tall buildings. The lightning can cause a severe damage to the lifes. This sudden electrostatic damages the electric circuits, hence leading to short circuit. It may cause to blast or fires and harms the man.To avoid this, lighting conductors are arranged on tall buildings. They attract the lightning and make it reach the ground safely