What Causes Thunder & Lightning? | THUNDERSTORM | The Dr Binocs Show | Peekaboo Kidz

Oh quickly, let's get into the car kitty. Phew, that was close. Kitty is scared. Well, it's not just you little kitty. When it comes to the forces of nature, few other things have sparked as much fear in us as the thunderous lightning. Wait a minute, that's an electrifying topic to explore. Hey friends, in today's episode, let us try to understand the mechanics of these forky bolts and answer a flashing question. What causes lightning? Zoom in! Lightning is a huge electrical spark that can be 8 kilometers long, followed by an earth-shattering big boom noise that could be very unsettling to the ears. And each bolt is so powerful that it would take up to 80 million car batteries to equal the power of one thunderbolt. This single bolt has enough energy to light a 100 watt bulb for 3 months. But these powerhouses come with a hefty cost as they can destroy anything that comes under their striking zone. Yes, though roughly 90% of people hit by lightning survive. However, they may suffer severe injury due to internal organ and nervous system damage. But the vital question is, what causes these flashy bright lights on a stormy day and night? Well, to know about it, let's start with your own life. Now tell me, have you ever been shocked when you touched a door knob, a car door handle or a water fountain? Well, if you did, then you might have been part of generating a mini lightning bolt. Yes, my friends, that shock you experienced is the effects of static electricity, which builds up in things around us and stays there for a while. These tiny electric charges are generated when two things are rubbed together. So, when you scuff your feet on a woolly carpet, you pick up little bits of negative charge along the way. And when you touch a door knob or something else made of metal, which has a positive charge with few electrons, the extra electrons take this opportunity and jump from you to the knob. And zap! You feel the shocking sensation. And what's more shocking to know is that the same phenomenon causes lightning, but at a much grander scale. Yes, the clouds hovering in the sky during the storm have bits of ice in them. And when these icy particles rub each other, they cause an electrical charge to increase inside the cloud. Some particles have a negative charge while some are positively charged. These two opposite charges tend to pull towards each other just like a magnet. Usually, these charges are evenly balanced. But the stormy winds in the cloud cause them to separate within the cloud and generate lightning in them. But we are more worried about the flashes that zap from the cloud and hit the ground. Most often, the negative charge settles at the lower part of the cloud and since opposites attract, this causes a positive charge to build upon the ground beneath the cloud. The ground's electrical charge concentrates on anything that sticks up such as mountains, a single tree or a pole. The charge coming up from these points eventually connects with a charge reaching down from the clouds. And zip-zap-zoop! We see the flashy fork-shaped electric currents shooting up in the cloud. It happens so fast that lightning seems to be hitting the ground. But in reality, it's the other way around. Shocking, isn't it? TRIVIA TIME! Did you know, every second about 100 lightning bolts strike the earth? Yes, in the USA alone, lightning hits the ground 25 million times a year. Hope you learned something new in today's episode. Until next time, it's me Dr. Binocs, Zooming Out! Nevermind!