Lightning Debate Sheds Some Light

Does lightning come from the lightning kitty? More true than I thought....
image by Ben Grelle


I received a phone call tonight from two people wishing to settle a debate on the source of lightning. One person said lightning came from the sky and the other said it came from the ground. Dinner at a nice Thai restaurant was at stake. My first response was "from the sky, of course". But I couldn't disregard the notion of ground origination since it came from what I knew to be an intelligent person. Well it turns out they are both right and I learned something new. This is how it goes: a path of negative electricity (that we cannot see) starts in the sky and travels toward the ground in a series of spurts. Since objects on the ground (like lightning kitty) are generally positively charged, and we all know that opposites attract, an upward positively charged stream, or channel, is sent out from the unfortunate object about to be struck. When the two paths meet, electricity begins flowing and a return stroke zips back up to the sky. Here comes the part I never knew (or forgot)...it is the return stroke from the ground that produces the visible flash that we see in the sky....so I guess you would say the actual flash of lightning we see does come from the ground, but the invisible force that starts the whole process is from the sky. So the real question here may be "is it called lightning before we can see it?" Sounds like each person may have to pay for their own Thai dinner.