What is ELVE lightning?

ELVES (Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources) often appear as a dim, flattened, expanding glow around 400 km (250 mi) in diameter that lasts for, typically, just one millisecond. They occur in the ionosphere 100 km (62 mi) above the ground over thunderstorms.

What causes blue jet lightning?

What causes Blue Jets? The blue jets occur when some positively charged upper part of any cloud interacts with a negatively charged layer present immediately above it. This then briefly equalizes both opposing charges which result in a bright blue discharge of static electricity. This is called blue lighting.

What causes sprite lightning?

Sprites or red sprites are large-scale electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorm clouds, or cumulonimbus, giving rise to a quite varied range of visual shapes flickering in the night sky. They are usually triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between an underlying thundercloud and the ground.

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 is space lightning called?

Early research reports for these events referred to them by a variety of names, including "upward lightning," "upward discharges," "cloud-to-stratosphere discharges," and "cloud-to-ionosphere discharges." Now they are simply referred to as sprites, a whimsical term that evokes a sense of their fleeting nature, while at ...

Blue jets, Sprites and Elves formed by electrical activity above storm clouds | Colourful Weather

Is Pink lightning real?

In snowstorms, where it is somewhat rare, pink and green are often described as colors of lightning. Haze, dust, moisture, raindrops and any other particles in the atmosphere will affect the color by absorbing or diffracting a portion of the white light of lightning.

What is the rarest color of lightning?

Green lightning is a rare phenomenon that can be seen during a thunderstorm. Someone who has seen green lightning is extremely lucky as green lightning strikes are rarely seen. It is so rare that the only photograph of a green lightning strike is one from when the Chaiten volcano in Chile erupted.

Is red lightning real?

Red lightning doesn't exist in the literal sense, according to the National Weather Service. The closest known phenomena is something called a red sprite, which occurs high in the atmosphere “directly above an active thunderstorm,” NOAA says.

What is a Superbolt lightning?

“Superbolts” are the most powerful lightning on Earth, with discharges so strong that they cannot be reproduced in the laboratory. The bolts also display geographic and seasonal attributes opposite that of regular lightning, adding to their mystery.

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 red lightning hotter than blue?

The color spectrum in this case start with infared which is red and the coolest up to ultraviolet which appears violet and is the hottest. Lightning also can take on a range of colors, depending on conditions in the clouds and in the air. Typically, blue lightning within a cloud indicates the presence of hail.

How hot is red lightning?

It can reach temperatures approaching 30,000 K (55,000 °F). This is five times hotter than the surface of our sun!

Is blue lightning real?

When an unexpected event happens people describe it as a “bolt from the blue”. The phrase is actually based on real weather phenomena where a lightning bolt will strike an area with no overhead clouds. While bolts from the blue don't originate from blue sky, they occur infrequently, are unexpected, and can be deadly.

What is upside down lightning called?

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 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.

What is jet lightning?

Scientists have finally gotten a clear view of the spark that sets off a weird type of lightning called a blue jet. Lightning bolts usually are seen zipping from thunderclouds down toward the ground. But blue jets shoot up from clouds. They ascend high into a layer of the atmosphere called the stratosphere.

What is the most powerful lightning?

What are the 4 types of lightning?

What is the largest lightning bolt ever recorded?

A bolt stretching nearly 800 kilometres (500 miles) across three states now holds the record for the longest lightning flash. On 7 February 2022, the World Meteorological Organization announced that a single bolt on 29 April 2020 stretched over 767 kilometres (477 miles) across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

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.

Is there Black lightning?

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.

How hot is violet lightning?

How Hot Is Purple Lightning? Purple lightning is often seen during thunderstorms and it's one of the more moderate forms of lightning with temperatures reaching up to 55,000 degrees Fahrenheit!

What color is savitar's lightning?

Also, the armor is capable of changing the color of a speedster's lightning as the armor changed Savitar's lightning from yellow to white.

Is Brown lightning real?

This oftentimes has to do with how far away or close you are to the lightning strike. When lightning strikes, different particles will scatter this light and cause the strike to appear as blue, pink, purple, white or even a brown-ish tint.

Is lightning hotter than the sun?

In fact, lightning can heat the air it passes through to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5 times hotter than the surface of the sun). When lightning strikes a tree, the heat vaporizes any water in its path possibly causing the tree to explode or a strip of bark to be blown off.