STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Researchers say they have used direct observation and computer models to describe how different forms of lightning are produced.
Although 90 percent of lightning goes from cloud to cloud, lightning also travels from cloud to ground and the reverse, the scientists said. It can travel from ground to cloud, then sideways, finally striking the ground miles from its origin.
Pennsylvania State University and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology researchers obtained detailed pictures of lightning from a three-dimensional locating system that maps lightning within clouds — something that cannot be accomplished through photography or videography.
Penn State graduate student Jeremy Riousset, a member of the research team, said the findings showed cloud-to-ground lightning develops “like normal intracloud lightning before escaping the thundercloud at upper levels and branching toward the ground.”
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