Why does lightning flash?

A lightning strike is an electric discharge between the atmosphere and an earth-bound object. They mostly originate in a cumulonimbus cloud and terminate on the ground, called cloud to ground (CG) lightning. A less common type of strike, called ground to cloud (GC), is upward propagating lightning initiated from a tall grounded object and reaches into the clouds. About 25% of all lightning events worldwide are strikes between the atmosphere and earth-bound objects. The bulk of lightning events are intra-cloud (IC) or cloud to cloud (CC), where discharges only occur high in the atmosphere.

A single lightning event is a "flash", which is a complex, multi-stage process, some parts of which are not fully understood. Let's explore!

During a storm, flashes of lightning followed by thunder, light up the sky like fireworks. It is an impressive, and sometimes frightening spectacle. The flash occurs for several reasons. As
the air heats and cools, it expands and contracts, and this causes changes in the movement of air, and pressure. The water droplets at the top of a cloud have a positive electrical charge, while those at the bottom of a cloud are negatively charged.

When the clouds are low enough, the negative charge in the water droplets attract a positive charge from the Earth. As a result, electrical energy is released with a flash. This causes the air to be heated to a tremendously high temperature, which in turn, causes the air to expand suddenly with an explosive noise that we call thunder. Though thunder and lightning occur at the same
time, we see lightning first, and then hear thunder because light travels faster than sound.

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