Re:Start of Lightning Bolt Caught on Camera
by omribahumi on Friday October 23, 2015 @11:13AM
(#10439073)
Are the positive ones the "bigger" ones?
EDIT: From the linked Wikipedia entry: "Because of the much greater distance to ground, the positively charged region can develop considerably larger levels of charge and voltages than the negative charge regions in the lower part of the cloud."
Re:Start of Lightning Bolt Caught on Camera
by TeMPOraL on Friday October 23, 2015 @11:33AM
(#10439236)
I didn't know about positive/negative polarity types of discharges, thanks!
Also, having Cloud to Butt extension installed made reading that Wikipedia quote quite interesting...
Re:Start of Lightning Bolt Caught on Camera
by ourmandave on Friday October 23, 2015 @12:25PM
(#10439605)
...carry ten times the charge and exceed a billion volts of potential.
Great Scott!
From the nature article, it seems this was the first video of natural bidirectional lightning, not triggered by rockets or aircraft: "In contrast to studies of rocket-triggered lightning and lightning initiated by aircraft, which found delays of 3–6 ms between the onset of negative and positive leader branches, this natural event exhibited a delay of less than 90 μs (i.e. one video image)."
This was a negative polarity lightning strike. the most common type. Less than 5% of lightning is positive polarity but they can carry ten times the charge and exceed a billion volts of potential.
When you read about people surviving lightning strikes it's almost certainly a negative polarity strike. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Positive_and_negativ...