HOW LIGHTNING WORKS - Weird World of Lightning?

Lightning is like a supercharged version of what happens when you rub your feet on the carpet and then touch a doorknob, but way, way bigger.

When it rains, clouds move around and bump into each other. Inside these clouds, tiny bits called ice particles and water droplets crash together. This crashing makes the cloud act like a giant battery, storing up energy. The top of the cloud becomes positively charged, while the bottom becomes negatively charged.

Now imagine you're playing with a balloon, when it gets close to your head, your hair stands up because of the static electricity. Something similar happens between the clouds and the ground. The negative charge at the bottom of the cloud tries to find a path back to the positive charge in the top of the cloud or even down to the Earth.

That path is like a zip line for electricity, it zips through the air in a flash, creating lightning. Sometimes you see a bright light and hear a loud boom because the air gets super hot and expands really fast, making sound waves that travel to your ears.

So next time you see lightning, imagine it's like a giant version of static electricity having a fun race across the sky!