Lightning? Where does it come from?

Question

I've had a debate just a few nights ago on where lightnings originates. He believes that lightning starts from the ground, and works its way up. I believe that it starts from the sky, and works its way to the ground. What do you think? And please provide me with references to back up your opinion/answer.

Answer 1

I have NO idea.  But I've seen the factory where clouds are made.  Its in Indianapolis.

Answer 2

There are dozens of kinds of lightning, and we don't think we've cataloged them all yet.  

It's easiest to think of a lightning strike as a crack in the atmosphere--we call it an electrical breakdown, in fact.  Now, take a cracker and break it.  In which direction does the crack propagate?  Or does it appear all at once?  That's the best way to think of lightning strikes, which also _look_ like cracks.  

In cloud-to-ground lightning strikes the breakdown progresses so quickly that nobody could actually follow it.  But to most people, including me, it does look like it moves downward from the sky to the earth, even though we can use high-speed cameras to show that it generally doesn't.  

Now, in some cases of cloud-to-cloud lightning the breakdown does progress across the sky in a series of jumps, and the precise mechanism of these isn't known so well at present.  Every time we think we've got a handle on lightning behavior it fools us again.  

It does help to know that thunderclouds are generally on the order of eight or ten miles up, and that lightning strokes travel horizontally for great distances.  It's easy for them to do this up where the air is so thin because they don't encounter too many gas molecules on the way.  

If you ignore what he occasionally has to say about lightning safety and his participation in lawsuits pertaining to lightning-strike injuries, Martin Uman's books on the subject of lightning are reliable.

Answer 3

LIGHTNING       starts    at   the  ground    and    proceeds      up.Check    with  NOAH   or    refer   to  any   scientific  study   on   weather.      THANK   YOU   FOR  YOUR   WISDOM   AND   HARD  WORK   FOR  US  HERE.   db

Answer 4

They are clouds with different positive and negative bars which when hit each other causes lightning