ABSTRACT
Lightning has been investigated using photography, optics, electromagnetics, and acoustics, or a combination of two or three of these. The electric field grows due to charge generation and separation in the cloud, with lightning resulting. Growth of thunderstorm clouds and the occurrence of associated lightning has often been reported in large fires. Thunderstorm electricity consists of swarming main positive and negative charges with a small positive charge. Thunderstorms and lightning occur in big fires. Lightning also occurs during volcanic eruptions, nuclear detonations, large earthquakes, and during sandstorms. Lightning that occurs between a cloud and the ground is called cloud-to-ground discharge, or simply, ground discharge. Ground discharge is a transient, high-current electrical discharge with a path length of several kilometers. If the spatial distribution and the temporal variation of the currents energizing the lightning channel were known, then the electric and magnetic fields radiated from the channel could be calculated as a function of time and distance.
