ELECTRICAL STORMS

In the English summer we have been experiencing soaring temperatures and ELECTRICAL STORMS!

But what is an electrical storm (I hear you ask). Well I will enlighten you! 

  First we need to understand what static electricity is because it's very important for the explanation. When you were younger did you rub a balloon on your hair and then when placed on a wall it would stick there. Well that is an example of static electricity. Everything is made of atoms and these atoms contain equal numbers of negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons. When you are rubbing the balloon you are transferring the electrons from the balloon and your hair. If the object is left with more electrons it becomes negatively charged and if it's left with less it's positively charged. As you know opposite charges attract that's why the balloon sticks to the wall. 

Why is this connected to electrical storms? 

Well you see in a cloud rain and ice droplets are constantly colliding. These collision (like rubbing the balloon) cause electrons to be knocked off, some droplets become negatively charged and others positively. For reasons unknown to science smaller particles gain a positive charge and larger particles gain a negative charge. Updrafts and gravity mean that the smaller particles and taken to the top of the cloud and larger particles are drawn to the bottom. "This causes a massive electrical imbalance with an enormous electric potential of millions of volts across the storm cloud" Basically the storm cloud is very charged, so in order to neutralise this lightening is formed as huge currents that travel across the air to the ground to be earthed. 

As always, Seemal