Lightning Part 2 (From Worcester News)

Lightning Part 2

10:31am Thursday 9th July 2009 in

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Lightning starts when energy sparks from the bottom of the cloud to the positive charged ground. The energy is greeted by a return stroke carrying a positive charge upwards along the same path of air travelled by the leader stroke. Flashes continue until the charge between cloud and ground has equalized by the lightning.

Lightning can be very destructive. It can strike trees, buildings and also people and cause forest fires in drought conditions. Lightning kills about 100 people a year in the US alone. The golfer Lee Trevino was once hit by lightning during a game of golf in 1975. Amazingly he was not killed, but the lightning badly damaged his spine.

Thunder and lightning occur at the same time, but the light reaches your eye almost instantly, while sound travels more slowly. You can work out the distance to the storm by counting the interval betwen seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder.

Look for the lightning, start counting, and stop when you hear the thunder. Sound travels 3 seconds/km (5 second/mile), if the time between the flash and thunder is 10 seconds, divide by 5 which means the storm is only 2 miles away from you, so you can plot where the flash occured, and trace the storm as it moves through your area.

Next Week: Types of Lightning.

Glossary: Velocity: Speed and direction reported together.

Weather for coming week Monday 6th July-Friday 10th July

Low pressure to the west north-west early in the week, transfering to Norway later allowing a rise of pressure out in the west.

Monday/Tuesday brings sunshine and large amounts of cloud cover, local heavy showers with hail, thunder and squally south-west then north-west winds.

The remainder of the week will bring dry brighter weather with a gentle north/north-west breeze and some sunshine.

Maximum temperature 19-23c 66-73f.

Minimum temperature 11-13c 52-55f.

Last Week's Weather Observations (Monday-Sunday)

Highest day temperature..........30.6c on Wednesday 1st July.

Lowest night temperature........12.2c on Friday 3rd July.

Wettest day.............................2.5 mm on Tuesday 30th June.