Sprites, Jets, and Glowing Balls: The Science of Lightning

Ever wonder how lightning works? Scientists are still figuring it out, but what we do know is fascinating. Learn about positive and negative lightning, red sprites, blue jets, and ball lightning in this episode of SciShow!

Hosted by: Michael Aranda
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Dooblydoo thanks go to the following Patreon supporters -- we couldn't make SciShow without them! Shout out to Justin Ove, Andreas Heydeck, Justin Lentz, Will and Sonja Marple, Benny, Chris Peters, Tim Curwick, Philippe von Bergen, Patrick, Fatima Iqbal, Lucy McGlasson, Mark Terrio-Cameron, Accalia Elementia, Kathy & Tim Philip, charles george, Kevin Bealer, Thomas J., and Patrick D. Ashmore.
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Sources:
Basics about lightning (types and positive/negative)

Red Sprites and Blue Jets

Ball lightning

Image sources:

[blackmesa]

Thank you for shedding light on this topic. Very enlightening. I think it deserves thunderous applause. Weather or not you make more videos on this, this was great.

[bazrazin]

i extremely like the thunder surround sound, no music equipment can ever reproduce the crisp powerful roar.

[cellogirlrw]

I actually had some ball lightning float through one of the windows in my living room about 2 years ago. It was a beautiful little blue, sparkling ball about the size of a tennis ball, which aimlessly floated around the room for about 30 seconds before disappearing into thin air. I was mesmerized by it, but, if I had known what I know now about ball lightning then, I probably would've been terrified of it. Ball lightning has been known to start fires, short out electrical systems, and strike people, as well as animals.

[kawaiierness]

Kudos on a well done video from a Meteorologist. Whenever there is a positive strike, all the weather nerds get up in arms. It is a rare and exciting (also dangerous) moment.

[basti]

I was in hospital last year and i was sitting at the window at night, watching the lightningstorm.

I could see the whole city from above and it was really beautiful and all of a sudden lots of lightning strikes at the same time but
all of them where orange.

The whole skyline in a bright orange light ... one of the most beautiful things ive ever seen :)
It also made my time in hospital a lot more enjoyable :DD

[overkillsnake]

Awe, no ball lightning footage? TO THE GOOGLE SEARCH BAR!

[joheyjonsson]

Closest I've been to a lightning strike was 15 feet. It hit the railway powerlines as I was openingen the door to the station house to get out of the rain. It was very loud and made the hairs on my arms stand straight up. I felt very, very insignificant, in a weirdly
life-affirming way, in the face of all that power.

[TheBen]

Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening!

[tamberjune]

I remember one 4th of July when I lived in the mountains of Arizona. The fireworks show and carnival was going on in front of me but I was mesmerized by all the different kinds of lightning happening in the mountains to my left. It went on for a long time. I miss being able to be far enough away, but still see amazing things.

[onafehts]

My mother tells me about a ball of light that would go really slowly from one point of the ranch always towards a specific mountain. Apparentely it happend quite often and was called "mother of gold", because people believed there was gold underground where it hit.

[Srapture]

"Scientists in China recorded the first video of ball lightning".
**Doesn't show video of ball lightning**

[zachell]

Awesome ball lightning! Been waiting years to hear more about it. When i was a kid maybe 9 (25 now) years old not sure, I had a science book that talked about it but basically only said that it exists and that we really don't know anything about it. To me its one of the most amazing mysteries! Hopefully i will see it one day. But sounds like we still don't know much.

[merrigalebeddoes]

The weirdest lightning I've seen first-hand was in Okinawa in the '80s. There was just one small round cloud in the sky and every 15 or 20 seconds or so it would flash like a strobe light. It was really bright, and I did not hear any thunder. It was almost as if I UFO was taking flash photos of us.

[amandab]

I'd still like to know what I saw once. A small ping pong ball sized light appeared and quickly floated between me and a friend when we were outside talking. Saw another faster moving one elsewhere that night too. There wasn't any lightning storms and many of us saw the same thing so it wasn't our imagination either.

[darkfire]

Had a super intense thunderstorm last year at 2am, normal blue-white lightning but sometimes got the occasional purple one. Quite the experience, ended up lasting almost half an hour with strikes happening within seconds of each other at some points. Course by the time my brain started working again and I tried to pull out my camera it was over >:C

[jankuschef]

That was the shortest 3min 30 sec video I've ever seen. There is so much about lightning that is incredibly cool!

[antoniocusato]

Been wanting a ball-lightning segment for so long :)
Thanks so much!

[RukaSubCh]

It's fascinating to watch lighting in the sky. And smartphones can finally capture images of them using slow motion video.

[ALYAZEEM]

I think the theory about ball lightening is quiet true, because we always see it happening on the horizon during the rare storms here in Abu Dhabi, hence Abu Dhabi is surrounding by silica sand dessert

[adameager]

I wonder if anyone here could help me identify a lightning phenomenon I witnessed years ago. It was midday, clear skies over me, but far to the west was a massive cumulonimbus cloud flashing with lightning, too distant to hear the thunder. I love lightning, so I watched it for a while. Then, after one of the flashes, the light just sort of ... stayed there. Keep in mind that I was in full Florida midday sun, and this cloud had a spot on it glowing so brightly that I could easily see it. Several seconds later, lightning flashed again and the glowing spot retreated after it, and was gone. But just a moment later, it happened again. Flash and glow ... flash and retreat. I got some friends to come and look to make sure I wasn't seeing things, and they saw it too. It continued the same pattern for about twenty minutes before the glow stopped returning. Unfortunately, this was long enough ago that my cellular phone didn't come with a camera, so this is purely anecdotal. But if anyone has any thoughts about what it might have been, I'd really like to hear them. Thanks!