Not only does it hit the ground, lightning can also strike back from the ground to the sky

Usually, thunderstorms come down from the sky but in reality, there is a type of lightning that strikes back from the ground.

1. If struck by lightning when flying, is the bullet affected?
2. Explore the most heavily hit places in the world, 28 lightning bolts every minute, 10 hours a night
3. Living the whole life is not sure we have had the luck to witness these extremely rare weather phenomena

Every second there are 40 - 50 lightning strikes on Earth. When a thundercloud cloud forms and driftes in the atmosphere, the negative charge is stored inside and the positive charge accumulates beneath the cloud. Dynamic ion particles in the air collide with each other and create lightning.

When discharging in a lightning atmosphere, it can travel at 36,000 km / h. The light is 299,792 km / s, and the noise only moves at 1,230 km / h under normal conditions of the air so we often see lightning before hearing the noise. Lightning reaches 30,000 degrees Celsius.

Not only does it hit the ground, lightning can also strike back from the ground to the sky Picture 1
A reverse lightning bolt formed from the roof of a high-rise building.(Photo: Tom A. Warner / WeatherVideoHD.tv.)

Reverse lightning is often formed at the top of tall, booming towers and splits many rays in the sky. They can reach a height of 90km and create an extremely impressive scene.

Normal lightning occurs when negative ions flow from the clouds to the positive ion from the ground. Meanwhile, reverse lightning is formed when the positive ion moves from the ground faster, launching upward to connect the negative ion flow moving downwards to form a "circuit" with the cloud and the atmosphere above.

Not only does it hit the ground, lightning can also strike back from the ground to the sky Picture 2

The reverse lightning phenomenon was discovered for the first time since the 1930s, but it has only recently been taken care of by the sudden increase in wind turbines.

To optimize the ability to use wind, wind turbines are often placed on top of mountains but this also makes them more susceptible to lightning strikes. Aleksandr Smorgonskiy, a graduate student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, has studied data for 15 years on cases of lightning hitting wind turbines on two peaks in Europe to learn about how lightning forms and impacts of they are on the turbine.

Smorgonskiy discovered that the number of lightning strikes from the bottom up occurred more than 100 times the normal lightning phenomenon and more than 80% of the reverse lightning was activated. And spontaneous reverse lightning occurs more in summer than in winter.

Smorgonskiy said that how the lightning struck depends on the air temperature. Currently, scientists have not found the optimal solution to avoid lightning for wind turbines.