Lightning, often thought of as an awesome and terrifying natural phenomenon, is really nothing more than an electrical discharge that happens to be at an enormous voltage. Lightning equalizes a difference of electrical potential, whether it is between a cloud and the ground, between two clouds, or between two different areas of the same cloud.

Due to various mechanisms in storm cloud formation, such as the rising and falling of air currents carrying moisture and ice particles, a storm cloud generates an electrical charge at its center. Charged regions in a thundercloud create conductive ionization channels through the atmosphere called “stepped leaders” and an opposite electrical charge, or “shadow,” accumulates on the ground below.

These leaders jump and branch ever downward in a quest to connect with their oppositely charged shadow on the earth’s surface. As the fiercely charged electrical field builds, streamers rise from objects on the ground. When a stepped leader from the sky chooses to meet the strongest rising streamer from below, a lightning “circuit” is completed. The main lightning stroke erupts up the ionized path. Numerous additional strokes along the same channel are common, thus, creating a mesmerizing strobe light effect.