Picture of the day - March 7, 2005

Lightning At The Lake

Lightning... No other force in nature has the ability to inspire such a complete feeling of awe (or fear for that matter). Anyone who has ever had a really close encounter with lightning will tell you that it's a life-altering event.  In the United States alone, lightning strikes the ground (or an object) some 25 million times each and every year! Given this statistic, it might seem that an individual would have a great chance of getting hit by lightning, but actually the odds are only 1 in 3,000 that you will receive a lightning strike in your entire lifetime. Lightning occurs when a large build-up of static electricity discharges between two objects. Usually, these objects are a cloud and the ground, but lightning also strikes between two clouds. Thunder always accompanies a lightning strike. A lightning discharge causes the air in its path to heat up very much, very rapidly, causing a rapid expansion of the air molecules resulting in a loud clap of thunder. If you see a flash of lightning and hear the thunder several seconds later, the lightning is pretty far away from you. But if you hear the thunder right away after seeing lightning, the storm is very close so you should take shelter immediately!   Picture Of The Day Homepage Interesting Articles