A Woman from Florida captured the video meant for her family and friends complaining about the ugly weather in Boynton Beach, Florida. She captured a rare phenomenon that has seldom been caught on video before (positive lightning).
Her video, which went viral in a matter of Minutes, shows her dragging the shades of the window open and shattering second later when the lightning struck. The 12-second clip looks and sounds like fireworks bursting. Experts at the National Weather Service in Miami calls it'positive lightning', which is considerably different in the way it forms than the more common, lightning called ‘Negative Lightning’.
Though she was harmless in her room, Hite is pretty shaken up by the incident. In an interview with Palm Beach Post, Hite aforementioned "It was crazy. Very scary, very loud. It was just the right place at the right time. I could probably never in my life get something like that again."
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So let’s know about Negative Lightning,
Negative lightning refers to the polarity of the lightning strike. rather like on any battery that features a + (positive) or – (negative) sign. The sign represents the kind of charge that comes from that finish. With lightning, this implies there's a transfer of an electric charge from the cloud to the bottom in negative lightning strikes.
90-95% of all lightning is charged. It’s terribly dangerous and a typical negative charged bolt is regarding 300,000,000 volts and 30,000 amps of power. Your typical household lighting bulb is regarding 120 volts and 12 Amps.
Next is Positive Lightning,
These sorts of strikes solely make-up regarding 5-10% of all lightning strikes. In contrast to Negative lightning that originates within the lower to the middle of the storm. Positive lightning originates at the highest, some 30-60,000’ feet up. Normally, the bottom is protected from this higher charge by negative charges within the central a part of the storm; but, once higher level winds are stronger then lower level winds and therefore the storm becomes atilt, or once the anvil of the storm cloud spreads out prior to or behind the draught of the storm, the bottom isn't any longer protected from this higher charge. If the charge variations between this higher level charge and therefore the ground becomes large, a downward-moving charged leader will develop.
Because this strike should travel over such an oversized distance it is often up to ten times stronger and last ten times longer than a negative strike. Therefore it will reach one billion volts and 300,000 amps! The stronger voltage and longer lasting bolt are that the reason they cause the most injury and cause numerous deaths. Positive strikes are typically the reason behind forest fires, house fires, and injury to planes and power grids.
They can also travel massive distances far-off from the parent storm. Some up to 20-30 miles from the parent storm. whereas solely 100% of lightning strikes victims die from being hit, most are hit by negative strikes. The proportion of positive strike fatalities is far higher.
Some Interesting Properties of Positive Lightning
which may be new to us (by NOAA):-
- · Positive lightning can be the dominant type of cloud-to-ground during the winter months and in the dissipating stage of a thunderstorm.
- · Positive lightning has been identified as a major source for the recently discovered sprites and elves. Sprites and elves are most likely lightning discharges but occur from 18-60 miles (30-95km) in altitude, well above the parent thunderstorm.
- · Positive lightning is usually composed of one stroke (negative lightning typically consists of two or more strokes)
- · Some studies have found a correlation between tornado genesis and positive lightning strikes spikes.
