One extreme weather event that Florida is notorious for is lightning.
While places like Texas might have more lightning strikes each year, Florida is considered the lighting capital of America because we average seven lightning deaths per year, more than any other state. This is because we are more densely populated, we spend more time outdoors, and we are surrounded by water.
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WATCH HEREHow does lightning form?
How lighting forms is complicated but begins with “lift.” Lift happens when the sun heats the ground, warm air rises, cools and condenses into clouds, which are made up of water, ice and water/ice pellets.
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And this is where it gets tricky.
Because ice and the water ice/water pellets don’t weigh the same, the updraft separates the ice from the ice/water mix, which in turn separates positive and negative charges.
Weather Explainers
Lightning is simply closing the circuit between the negative charges at the base of a cloud and the positive charges high up in the cloud or down on the ground. Lighting can happen in a cloud, between clouds, or in the sky, but the deadliest type is cloud-to-ground.
Because lighting is lazy, the negative charge at the cloud base will seek out the first positive charge it can find on the ground. That’s usually the tallest object. That could be a flagpole on a tall building, a tree on a gold course, or a human standing on the beach.
The other interesting aspect of lighting is that when lightning is forming, an invisible charge will go from negative to positive.
Our eyes can’t see this “stepped leader,” but rather the “return stroke” that completes the circuit from positive on the ground to negative back in the cloud.
