Molly Brenner, Anna Cam,

Shelly Chao, Daisy Garcia

Atmosphere
Florida Lightning

Global Scale
Florida has more lightning strikes contact the ground per year than any other place in the United States,
with nearly 1/3 of each year effected by major thunderstorms and the lightning that comes with it. Central
and Southern Florida are affected most and the most dangerous months are June, July and August.
Florida also leads North America in injuries and fatalities due to lightning. In less than 50 years, 425
people have died and another 2,000 were injured in lightning strike accidents in Florida alone. Floridas
panhandle placement between the Atlantic Ocean and The Gulf of Mexico create dual coastlines which
allows two separate sea breezes to move moist air up into cumulonimbus clouds over the warm air inland.
The updrafts and downdrafts of cool and warm air meeting cause the particles of moisture to collide,
which separate the electrical charges. Negative charges hang low while the positive charges shoot up,
further unbalancing the atmospheric electricity between the cloud and ground. Lightning relieves the
electrical imbalance.

Regional Scale
Lightning is classified 3 ways, 1) cloud-to-cloud; 2) cloud-to-ground; and 3) intra-cloud depending on
where the lightning strikes, but the trajectory of the strike is dependent on the location and the charge of
the particles within the clouds and on the ground. If the earths particles are positively charged and the
lower particles within the cloud are negative, the flash of lightning occurs when the negative charge from
the cloud connects with the positive charges that generally move up objects on the ground such as trees,
telephone poles, tall building or even people; though lightning can randomly hit anywhere. The most
common kind of lightning is intra-cloud, where the polar charges find each other within the clouds and
never make contact with the ground.

Local Scale
Lightning travels at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), while thunder travels at the speed of
sound (1,090 feet per second). Thunder is the sound created by the rapid heating of air surrounding the
strike up to 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or hotter than the surface of the sun. You can determine the
distance between yourself and the thunderstorm by counting the seconds between seeing the lightning
and hearing the thunder, then dividing by 5. A 10 second delay is a distance of only 2 miles. Lightning can
strike up to 10 miles away from a cloud and be heard about 12 miles away, so if you can hear it, generally
you are within striking distance. Also, if the time gap is less than 30 seconds or it has been less than 30
minutes since the last lightning flash, it is still an immediate threat. Lightning is only about 1-2 thick and
lasts just a few millionths of a second, but can be 100 million to one billion volts of electricity.
Screencast URL:
http://youtu.be/0mKRgB28PVQ