Does a lighten bolt start from high in the air or from the ground level?

Question

Does a lighten bolt start from high in the air or from the ground level?

Answer 1

ground

Answer 2

it goes from both- charged particles in the air begin to go down and as it goes oppositely charged particles usually coming from the highest object ie; trees, buildings, etc, are attracted to the opposite charges

Answer 3

Well actually the most common is Cloud-Cloud strikes. There is Cloud to Ground. This is a discharge between a cumulonimbus cloud and the ground. but there is also Ground-to-cloud lightning where it is a discharge between the ground and a cumulonimbus cloud. So I guess the answer is that both of them can happen.

Answer 4

Good question! It looks like lightning goes down yet we are told that electrons move from negative to positive pole. But first, look at this slow-motion video of a lightning bolt:

http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2008/08/07

What happens is that by friction, the air in the center of the storm is positively charged in relation to ... everything else. Lightning can then discharge that energy to just anything: another cloud or the earth.

When the latter happens, it looks like the positive charge sense first the shortest way; hence all the forks. Once the shortest way found, applying the law of the least effort, all of the energy is discharged.

So, is it going down or going up? I guess it's in the way we look at it.