Why does it thunder and lightning when it rains?

Generation of lightning: When there is lightning in the sky, there will be many clouds around. Those clouds are charged, some are positive and some are negative. When the positive and negative electrodes contact, sparks will be generated. Because the voltage on the ground is zero, in other words, the ground is a conductor without voltage.

At this time, charged clouds on the ground and in the sky form conductors. When moving along a conductor, electricity will move to the ground and form lightning. Formation of lightning: A cloud with a negative electrode will generate sparks when it contacts a cloud with a positive electrode. In the process of production, a large number of electrons will move and collide, thus making a sound and forming lightning.

Extended data:

The lightning generated by thunderstorm clouds is very similar to the arc discharge mentioned above, except that lightning is fleeting, but the spark between electrodes can exist for a long time. Because the high voltage between the two electrodes can be artificially maintained for a long time, it is difficult to replenish the charge in the thunderstorm cloud immediately after discharge.

When the accumulated charge reaches a certain amount, a strong electric field is formed between different parts of the cloud or between the cloud and the ground. The average electric field intensity can reach several thousand volts/cm. The strong electric field is enough to break through the atmosphere inside and outside the cloud and stimulate dazzling flashes between the cloud and the ground or between different parts of the cloud and between different clouds. This is what people often say about lightning.

Seeing lightning with the naked eye is very complicated. When the thunderstorm cloud moves somewhere, the middle and lower part of the cloud is the center of strong negative charge, and the underlying surface opposite the cloud bottom becomes the center of positive charge, forming a strong electric field between the cloud bottom and the ground. With more and more charges and stronger electric field, a section of air column with strong atmospheric ionization first appears at the bottom of the cloud, which is called cascade leader.

This ionized gas column extends to the ground step by step. The leader of each step is a dim light beam with a diameter of about 5 meters, a length of 50 meters and a current of about 100 ampere. It extends to the ground step by step at an average high speed of about 150000 m/s. When it was about 5-50 meters from the ground, the ground suddenly counterattacked. The channel of counterattack is from the ground to the bottom of the cloud, along.

The return stroke galloped from the ground to the bottom of the cloud at a higher speed of 50,000 km/s, emitting an extremely bright beam, which lasted for 40 microseconds, and the current passed through exceeded 10000 amps. This was the first lightning strike. A few hundredths of a second later, a dim light beam from the cloud, carrying huge current, flies to the ground along the path of the first lightning strike, which is called direct psychic guide.

When it is about 5-50 meters away from the ground, the ground will hit back upwards again, and then form an extremely bright beam, which is the second lightning strike. Then, like the second time, there were the third and fourth lightning strikes. Usually 3-4 lightning strikes constitute a lightning process. A lightning process lasts about 0.25 seconds. In this short time, huge electric energy will be released on the narrow lightning channel, thus forming a strong explosion and generating shock waves.

Then sound waves form and spread around. Is this thunder or "thunder"

The weather at that time was that the ground temperature was around zero, which made it possible to snow. At high altitude, warm and humid air climbs sharply, producing strong convection and cumulonimbus clouds, so it snows and thunders at the same time. There is a lot of airflow in the sky.

Some of these air currents run up, some run down, in different directions and at different speeds, some are fast and some are slow. The movement of airflow makes cumulus clouds in the air rush up and down. Friction between clouds makes them carry different kinds of charges. Because the same charges repel each other, positive and negative charges gather at the two ends of the cloud respectively. The faster the air flows, the thicker the clouds, and the more electricity it carries.

When the charge carried by cumulus reaches a certain level, it will be discharged through the air to neutralize the two charges. Because electricity will heat up when it passes through the air, the air will expand rapidly and make a huge noise. This is a transport mine. If the charged cumulus is close to the ground, the charge on the ground will be different from that under the cloud due to electrostatic induction. When the charge reaches a certain level, cumulus clouds will discharge to the ground.

Reference: Thunder (natural phenomenon) _ Baidu Encyclopedia

Lightning (natural phenomenon) _ Baidu Encyclopedia?