Lightning bolts are about as thick as a garden hose

As of 2025, the longest lightning bolt in the world spanned several states

Although the average bolt measures less than 16 kilometers (10 miles), the 2017 "megaflash" spanned 829 kilometers (515 miles) from eastern Texas to Missouri. Severe thunderstorms are common in the region, where warm, humid air from the Gulf collides with cool, dry air from the north, generating atmospheric instability.

The air around lightning can reach a temperature of about 30,000 degrees Celsius (54,000 degrees Fahrenheit)—five times hotter than the surface of the sun.

Watch lightning strike a building at 40,000 frames per second

When the built-up layer of negative charge at the bottom of clouds is sufficiently high, a network of charge filaments will emerge. If one of the filaments meets a rising strand of positively charged particles, a highly conductive path forms, and charges across all filaments move to the path, generating lightning

The unpredictability and brevity of lightning make lightning power impractical

While a typical lightning strike provides 30,000 amps at 300 million volts, the bolt only lasts about 30 microseconds. If the electrical surge could be captured—assuming one knew beforehand where it would strike—it would only provide enough electricity to power one home for about 6.4 hours.

Lightning rods provide a conductive pathway to safely steer massive electric currents

The device is positioned higher above the ground to "catch" one of the many branching filaments of electrons from clouds before they make contact with other surface structures, which have been induced to have a positive charge by overhead storm clouds. The current is then sent to a conductive grid buried underground.

Every day, lightning releases several Hiroshima bombs' worth of energy into the atmosphere

If all this lightning struck one location at once, the bolt would be the diameter of the center circle of a basketball court, turning the entire court into a crater. Its heat would ignite surfaces for miles around, and its shockwave would demolish buildings.

Lichtenberg figures capture lightning-like patterns within insulators

When high-energy electrons from particle accelerators are fired into materials like acrylic, they form a charged plane before discharging into scarred patterns within the material. By evenly charging a cylindrical bottle through rotation during the irradiation process, a 3D figure of lightning in a bottle can be created.

Being near a lightning strike—even without getting struck—can be fatal

Because animal tissue is generally more conductive than soil, electricity moving along Earth's surface after a strike tends to travel up and back down an animal's legs, discharging dangerous amounts of energy along the way, with risks increasing the farther apart the legs are. This ground current accounts for about half of all lightning-related deaths and injuries in humans.

Thunder occurs when fast-flowing electricity heats and pressurizes air, causing it to expand and produce a shockwave at each point along the bolt at multiple frequencies.

The characteristic zigzag of lightning originates from columns of conductive oxygen

Energized electrons from the base of clouds collide with oxygen molecules, placing them in a "singlet delta state," which makes the air conductive. Collisions continue until more than 1% of nearby oxygen is in this state—about 0.00005 seconds—matching the electrical potential of the cloud and propogating electricity in a 50-meter "step."

Lightning forms when streams of rising and falling charged particles connect

In cloud-to-ground lightning, a buildup of negative charge at the bottom of clouds repels electrons on Earth's surface, leaving behind positively charged particles. When descending negatively charged air—the stepped leader—meets rising positively charged particles—the upward streamer—brightening runs up the connection, producing intense flashes known as return strokes.

Dirty lightning is a thunderstorm created from friction between rising and falling flows of ash and smoke during volcanic eruptions.

Being struck by lightning has a mortality rate of about 10%

Near-immediate deaths are the result of electrical disruptions in the heart and nervous system, causing cardiac arrest, but severe skin burns, temporary paralysis, and blown eardrums are more common. About 74% of survivors are left with a long-term disability, which includes brain damage and changes in memory and mood.

View the various types of lightning

The most common form of lightning involves channels of electricity between oppositely charged regions within a cloud or between two clouds to reestablish electrostatic equilibrium. While cloud-to-ground lightning is understood best, research is ongoing to fully model the mechanisms behind rarer forms of lightning, such as transient luminous events.

On average, every in-service airplane is struck by lightning once a year

The average strikes per surface area per year on Earth suggest that aircraft should only be struck once every 1,000 years, based on their size, but proximity to storm clouds' high electrical fields increases strike rates. Aircraft are designed as continuous conductive shells, causing electricity to flow along their exterior and preventing internal damage.

Understanding ball lightning remains an area of active research

Observations of glowing orbs of light that appear during or after thunderstorms have been documented since at least the 12th century, but their rarity and short lifetimes have made their study challenging. Some theories suggest they form when lightning vaporizes pockets of gases in the air or certain materials on the ground.

Lightning is the sudden flow of electricity in the atmosphere as two oppositely charged regions seek to become balanced via the movement of electrons.

The total length of superconducting wire at the Large Hadron Collider spans about 250,000 kilometers (155,000 miles)—enough to wrap around the equator 6.2 times.

Atmospheric composition and temperature impact the color of lightning

Just as fire ranges from red to blue with increasing temperature, lightning's blueish-white comes from the superheating of air. The emission of light from the predominantly nitrogen- and oxygen-rich atmosphere produces a purple tint, with additional color caused by light scattering from humidity, hail, dust, and ash.

Between 2006 and 2021, 444 people died from lightning strikes in the US

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that the odds of being struck by lightning in one's lifetime are one in 18,864. Participation in outdoor activities during the summer months in Florida, Texas, and Colorado increases one's risk of exposure.

Lightning may kill as many as 320 million trees each year

Ignoring the effects of tree loss resulting from lightning-induced wildfires, researchers at the Technical University of Munich developed a quantitative model to estimate the loss of these organisms due to cloud-to-ground strikes, based on global lightning data and forest structure. They expect the estimate to rise due to increased strikes resulting from climate change.

Fulgurites are glass sculptures made by lightning vaporizing sand

Sometimes referred to as fossilized lightning, these tube-like structures are formed when high-temperature electrical currents fuse mineral grains into crystals, which can feature branching patterns resembling filaments of current. Their name derives from "fulgur," the Latin word for lightning.

Research shows that cosmic rays may trigger the cascade of displaced electrons needed to produce lightning, which is also enabled by pointed ice crystals that create strong electric fields.

A man survived being struck by lightning seven times

Roy Sullivan worked as a park ranger when he was first struck in April 1942 while fleeing a watchtower during a thunderstorm. Nicknamed the "Spark Ranger," he would be struck six more times while driving, in his garden, working in a guardhouse, sitting in his car, walking, and on a fishing trip.

Lightning storms are more common in coastal and tropical regions

Water-abundant areas that receive increased solar radiation, such as those near the equator, experience increased rates of evaporation, which produce tall clouds as moisture rises, cools, and condenses. Mountain ranges can also steer air to higher altitudes, creating collisions between atmospheric particles that generate charge imbalances—the precursors to lightning.

Track lightning strikes around the world

The Blitzortung platform triangulates the positions of this phenomenon from stations that detect atmospheric interference in low-frequency signals that are characteristic of lightning strikes. A network of nearly 2,000 stations transmits the required data to a central server, where its software performs these calculations and generates the subsequent visualization.

Colorful thunderstorm phenomena can be viewed from the International Space Station

Transient luminous events are lightning-related phenomena that occur in the atmosphere above storm clouds. These events often look like columns of red light resulting from electrical discharge, but may also appear as purple tendrils or long blue jets.

Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo is considered the lightning capital of the world

Spread across 140 to 160 nights, and as many as 10 hours per night, the region where the Catatumbo River flows into the semi-enclosed bay experiences approximately 1.6 million lightning strikes annually. The frequency of strikes may originate from warm Caribbean air interacting with cooler air from the Andes.

Scientists have diverted the path of lightning using lasers

A proof of concept for a laser protection system, which could be used to protect launchpads and airports in the future, was conducted on the Säntis mountain in northeastern Switzerland. Rapid laser pulses heated air molecules, creating a more conductive, 50-meter (164-foot) path for the electrical discharge to travel through.

Electricity can be lethal because it can disrupt the nervous system, which controls critical bodily functions that rely on electrical signals between cells, such as breathing and heart rate.

Fluorescent bulbs can be illuminated by overhead power lines without making contact

The electromagnetic fields produced by the alternating current in transmission lines can induce the motion of charges in nearby objects. This motion yields electric currents that can light up bulbs but are too small to harm humans.

Artificial lightning can improve the yield of shiitake mushroom growers

Researchers have found that shockwaves produced from lightning strikes homogenously break internal filaments called hyphae, transitioning the mushrooms from a vegetative growth to a fruiting phase. Repeated minor shocks near mushroom logs mimicked this effect.

Microchip fabricators create light by heating tin droplets to over 220,000 Kelvin

Every second, lasers strike 50,000 droplets moving at 250 kilometers (155 miles) per hour, vaporizing the tin in supernova-like miniature explosions that produce ultraviolet light. Knowing this light will spread via diffraction as it passes through a filter during manufacturing, designers reverse-engineer the filter design based on the required final microchip pattern.

Plasma is the most abundant form of visible matter in the universe

When electrons are stripped from neutral atoms as a result of high-energy interactions, such as lightning strikes, the atoms become positively charged ions. The mix of these ions and negatively charged electrons, which are too energetic to recombine, is extremely electrically conductive and affected by magnetic fields.

At the Large Hadron Collider, protons are accelerated so close to the speed of light that they would lag behind a laser by just 10 feet after 14 minutes of travel.

Some scientists hypothesize that stressed rocks can discharge built-up static electricity in the form of lightning—a phenomenon known as fracto-luminescence, or earthquake lights.

The speed of electricity may refer to the movement of electrons, which is on the order of a fraction of a millimeter per second, or energy, which is near the speed of light.

Dust particles on Mars can generate lightning

Through triboelectric charging, sand and dust on the Martian surface can become electrified when they rub against one another, causing friction to displace electrons and create charged particles. If this matter forms a strong enough electric field, it can overcome atmospheric insulation and produce electrical discharges, resembling lightning on Earth.

Hail forms in freezing temperatures thousands of feet above the ground

Even if surface temperatures are well above freezing during the summer, updrafts during thunderstorms can push raindrops high into the atmosphere, where they can freeze and form hail. Giant hailstones the size of softballs require updrafts of close to 100 mph.

Various types of tornadoes are distinguished by their shape, size, and location

Waterspouts form over water as long, thin columns of mist and air, while elephant trunks are tornadoes that elongate vertically as they become tilted during their formation, resembling the mammal's appendage. Wedge tornadoes are among the most powerful, often spanning a mile or more in width.

Explore a gallery of lightning photography taken from the Grand Canyon

In this series, award-winning photographer Adam Schallau accompanies each image with expert advice on how to capture the phenomenon successfully. Initially requiring the shutter to remain open for extended periods, today's technology includes a device called a lightning trigger, which senses incoming lightning and automatically manages the shutter.

There are no outdoor locations that are safe from lightning

If your hair stands up amid an approaching storm, seek shelter immediately, as a local buildup of charge imbalance precedes cloud-to-ground lightning. If you are stuck outside, move to a lower altitude, such as a valley or ravine, and avoid open fields, water, and isolated tall objects. Do not lie down or crouch.

The High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider will provide a tenfold increase in particle collisions compared with the initial LHC infrastructure by increasing the number of ions in collision bundles and by concentrating the ion beams.

Antimatter can be created from dark lightning—high-energy light emitted by deflected electrons after they are accelerated to near the speed of light by thunderstorms.

You are 65,000 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to be hit by space trash

In 2023, about 1,500 pieces of space junk fell to Earth, with most consisting of payload fragmentation debris. The vast majority that falls back to Earth burns up before reaching the surface, making it three times less likely to be struck by space trash than by a meteorite.

Units involving light, such as light-seconds and light-years, describe the distances traveled by light across that amount of time.

Through sonoluminescence, concentrated sound waves can produce short, high-intensity flashes of light by rapidly collapsing microscopic bubbles to temperatures up to twice that of the sun's surface.

Neutron star types, categorized by the presence of strong magnetic fields and radiation beams

Magnetars have magnetic fields about 1,000 times stronger than the average neutron star—roughly a trillion times stronger than Earth's. Pulsars emit beams of radiation from their magnetic poles, which appear as flickering radio wave signals as the object spins.

Light takes approximately eight minutes to travel from the sun's surface to Earth, but it takes thousands of years to reach the star's surface from its core—a distance more than 200 times shorter.

Scientists quantify how far from the poles auroras will be visible using the G-scale

The Geomagnetic Storm scale indicates the expected severity of the deformation of Earth's magnetic field based on the amount of energy injected by the solar wind. Solar activity is monitored using various satellites to forecast these storms, which can also be used to anticipate damage and disruption to power systems, radio communications, and satellite navigation.