What is bead lightning?

bead lightning, also called chain lightning, form of lightning of longer duration than more typical lightning that appears as a string of luminous segments instead of a continuous channel. It occurs infrequently but has been observed many times.

How does bead lightning work?

Bead Lightning is a name given to the decaying stage of a lightning channel in which the luminosity of the channel breaks up into segments. Nearly every lightning discharge will exhibit 'beading' as the channel cools immediately after a return stroke, sometimes referred to as the lightning's 'bead-out' stage.

What is ribbon lightning?

Ribbon Lightning occurs in thunderstorms with high cross winds and many return strokes The wind blows each successive return stroke sideways into the previous return stroke causing a ribbon effect (Camera movement during the capture of a lightning photograph can also result in the same effect).

What causes sheet lightning?

Lightning is an electrical discharge caused by imbalances between storm clouds and the ground, or within the clouds themselves. Most lightning occurs within the clouds. "Sheet lightning" describes a distant bolt that lights up an entire cloud base. Other visible bolts may appear as bead, ribbon, or rocket lightning.

What is Spider lightning?

Spider lightning refers to long, horizontally traveling flashes often seen on the underside of stratiform clouds. Spider lightning is often linked to +CG flashes.

Types of lightning (ball, bead, ribbon, bolbliksem, kugelblitz,...)

What is the rarest type of lightning?

ball lightning, also called globe lightning, a rare aerial phenomenon in the form of a luminous sphere that is generally several centimetres in diameter. It usually occurs near the ground during thunderstorms, in close association with cloud-to-ground lightning.

What color lightning is the strongest?

White: most powerful lightning color

White is the most dangerous color of lighting. It suggests both a low concentration of moisture and a high concentration of dust in air. We all are aware that being hit by lightning can have serious consequences.

How long does Ball Lightning last?

In some cases, ball lightning appears after a thunderstorm--or even before it. Its lifetime varies widely, ranging from a few seconds to several minutes; the average duration is about 25 seconds. The lifetime of ball lightning tends to increase with size and decrease with brightness.

What are the 3 different types of lightning?

There are three common types of lightning: cloud to ground, cloud to cloud and cloud to air. Cloud to ground lightning is the most dangerous.

What is fork lightning?

Forked lightning is lightning that divides into two or more parts near the ground.

What is dark lightning?

Dark lightning is a burst of gamma rays produced during thunderstorms by extremely fast moving electrons colliding with air molecules. Researchers refer to such a burst as a terrestrial gamma ray flash.

What is upward lightning?

The most important finding about upward lightning, is that it primarily occurs when there is a nearby positive cloud-to-ground flash. The electric field change caused by the preceding flash causes an upward positive leader to initiate from a tall object such as a building, tower or wind turbine.

What does Ball lightning look like?

The bizarre phenomenon, also known as globe lightning, usually appears during thunderstorms as a floating sphere that can range in color from blue to orange to yellow, disappearing within a few seconds. It's sometimes accompanied by a hissing sound and an acrid odor.

Can you survive a lightning strike?

In most cases, a person's heart will stop after being struck by lightning, so the key to survival is having someone nearby who can administer CPR. Even if you survive, a lightning strike will have long-lasting effects on your body, including memory issues, muscle soreness and changes in mood.

What causes lightning without thunder?

Thunder starts as a shockwave from the explosively expanding lightning channel when a large current causes rapid heating. However, it is possible that you might see lightning and not hear the thunder because it was too far away. Sometimes this is called “heat lightning” because it occurs most often in the summer.

Can fire Turn lightning?

If the fire is big enough, it will form a pyrocumulonimbus, or a "fire storm cloud." These can produce lightning, which could set off even more fires. They also generate stronger winds, which fan the fire, making it hotter and helping it spread.

What is a jet lightning?

A 'blue bang' sparks an unusual type of lightning in the upper atmosphere. The International Space Station spotted an exotic type of upside-down lightning called a blue jet (illustrated) zipping up from a thundercloud into the stratosphere in 2019.

What is a flash of lightning called?

A flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth. coruscation. fulguration. lightning. forked lightning.

What kind of lightning is most common?

Intra-Cloud: The most common type of lightning. It happens completely inside the cloud, jumping between different charge regions in the cloud. Intra-cloud lightning is sometimes called sheet lightning because it lights up the sky with a 'sheet' of light.

Has anyone been struck by ball lightning?

Four people died and approximately 60 suffered injuries during a severe storm. Witnesses described an 8-foot (2.4 m) ball of fire striking and entering the church, nearly destroying it. Large stones from the church walls were hurled onto the ground and through large wooden beams.

Is ball lightning a hallucination?

Mysterious floating blobs of light known as ball lightning might simply be hallucinations caused by overstimulated brains, a new study suggests. For hundreds of years eyewitnesses have reported brief encounters with the golf ball- to tennis ball-size orbs of electricity.

Does ball lightning explode?

Eyewitness accounts describe hovering balls of light typically about 20 centimeters in diameter, roughly the size of a bowling ball. The balls appear white, yellow, orange, blue, or (rarely) green and can last from mere seconds to up to a minute before fading, flashing, or exploding into nothing.

Can Black lightning exist?

Scientists have just begun to understand a strange phenomenon known simply as "dark lightning". Different from regular lightning, dark lightning is a release of high-energy gamma radiation—sources include supernovae and supermassive black holes—that is completely invisible to the human eye.

Is Gold lightning real?

Yellow lightning is uncommon; however, they tend to be cooler than the blue, lilac and white. They're caused to due to a high concentration of dust in the air. And is an indication of a dry thunderstorm with low-precipitation.

Is Black lightning real weather?

However, the weather phenomenon referred to as "dark lightning" occurs much less frequently. According to NASA, dark lighting is a mostly invisible burst of energy inside of thunderstorms that fills the sky with gamma rays. It is widely considered the most energetic radiation produced naturally on Earth.