Colorado Lightning Safety Awareness Week: The Science of Thunderstorms and Lightning


Colorado Lightning Safety Week continues through this Saturday. Today we discuss the science of lightning. 

Every thunderstorm produces lightning.  Lightning is a giant spark that moves within the cloud, between clouds, or between the cloud and the ground.  As lightning passes through the air...it heats the air rapidly to a temperature of about fifty thousand degrees Fahrenheit.  This causes a rapid expansion of the air near the lightning channel.  This rapid expansion causes a shock wave that we hear as thunder. 


Read the full blog posting at READYColorado.com.