how does electricity happen in a cloud?
93456
Some clouds contain +ve charge & some contain -ve. When both clouds come together in contact, they produce electricity which is the lightning.......
285182
Lightning basically is a discharge of static electricity. Atmosphere and ground work like two plates of a condensator.\n\nCharging a battery requires a steady current within a limited voltage range - if the voltage range is exceeded, all kinds of unwanted reactions take place which are likely to destroy the battery.\n\nI think what you are after is not use of the lightnings, but something like a cable hanging from the sky through which the electrostatic charge can be neutralized.\n\nThere are a couple of practical difficulties creating and fixating such a cable (or a sufficiently high tower). If we had them, we could indeed leach away potential differences between various layers of the atmosphere and the ground. Several science fiction writers have exploited that idea assuming availability of high temperature superconductors and spacelift cables. It might just work.\n\nSuperconductors are almost a necessity because a conventional cable that long would use up most of the energy as thermal energy released from its electrical resistance.\n\n\nSo: The use of lightnings as energy source is highly unlikely. The use of the energy which causes lightnings is theoretically possible, practically we lack the technology to make it useful. It is unlikely that we would rely on that energy if we could make space-lift cables because in that case we'd simply use solar energy collectors in space and lead down all the energy we need from the vast amount of unused solar radiation.
138725
You're right--lightning is just a spark. BUT it's a spark caused by massive voltage. Voltage can be defined as a difference in electrical potential between two points, with one point having a high negative electrical charge, the other a high positive electrical charge. This difference in electrical potential can become enormous when a thunderstorm gets going full force.\n\nRain and/or hail in the storm clouds are violently rubbed together by high-velocity winds, thus building up a net negative electrical charge (abundance of electrons). On the ground below the clouds no such action takes place, thus the ground has a net positive electrical charge (deficiency of electrons).\n\nEven though air is a very good insulator, the difference in electrical potential (voltage) between the storm clouds and ground can quickly reach as high as 500,000 volts, more than enough to produce a lightning "spark."
514416
The correct answer is yes it can.\n\nIn a thunder or cumulonimbus cloud the warm air rises and the cold air sinks, this movement of air causes a huge difference in the electrical distribution with the top of the cloud having a positive charge and the bottom having a negative charge.  A positive charge also builds up on the earths surface.\n\nEventually these charges built to such an extent that there is an electrical discharge from the negative charge at the base of the cloud towards the positive charge at the top of the cloud and also down to the positive charge on the ground.\n\nWhat actually happens is that the first discharge travels towards earth in short but very rapid bursts of about 100 meter lengths - when you see jagged strokes of lightening this is because each burst can change direction.  As it gets closer to earth the strength of the electrical field intensifies until contact is made with the earth.\n\nThis initial discharge is only a weak stroke of lightening and is called the Leader Stroke.  As soon as contact is made there is a much more powerful stroke of lightening which travels from the earth back to the cloud and this is the lightening we see, this is called the Return Stroke.
1088869
Lightning happens because of static electricity.  If you've ever gotten a little spark when you touched a doorknob or something metal, that's static electricity.  It happens because electrons (which make electricity) are "gathered up" in some materials when they are rubbed.  When your feet rub on a carpet, electrons from the carpet get picked up by your feet.  Then when you touch a doorknob or something metal, the electrons jump across to the doorknob, making a tiny spark.\n\nLightning is exactly the same thing, but much bigger.  The water in the clouds "rub" against the air, gathering electrons, until finally a huge spark leaps from the clouds to the ground.\n\nThunder happens right after lightning.  It happens because the lightning is so hot that it heats the air around it, making it expand.  Once the lightning is gone, the air rushes back in with a huge "bang" like giant clapping hands.\n\nThunder can be scary because it's so loud and unexpected.  But since thunder always follows lightning, here's what you can do:  When you see a flash of lightning, start counting, "one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi..." and so on until you hear the thunder.  Each "Mississippi" is about one second, and because of the speed of sound each second you count means that the lightning is about one-fifth of a mile away.  So if you can count to "five-Mississippi" before you hear the thunder, that means that the lightning is a mile away.  Knowing that it's that far away makes it not so bad.\n\nI think lightning is pretty neat to watch.  I used to live in the New Mexico desert, and when we had a thunderstorm you could see the lightning branching down from the clouds.  That's a little more interesting than just a bright flash of light.\n\nI hope that knowing more about lightning and thunder will help make it less scary for you.  Try looking up "lightning" on Google, look at some pictures and see how interesting lightning really is.
439180
Lightning is an electrical connection between the ground and the sky, it can come from the ground or from the sky or from both at the same time and meet somewhere in between.
1132230
Standing in any cloud you would get wet. Clouds are made up from condensation from rain water. It is water droplets that make the clouds in the first place.
488816
niether.. a lightening rod is actually a good conductor with plenty of sharp ends or spikes. when a charged cloud(assumed negative) comes near the arrestor, opposite charges are induced in the spikes. these ionise the air in the vicinity which in turn neutralises the cloud. this reduces the potential of the cloud. the negative charge (transferred from the air to the rod) are passed to the ground by connecting wires. thus lightening is prevented by the arrestor.
22072
Clouds aren't just random droplets of water. What they are is tiny droplets of water that have condensed from water vapor in areas where the conditions (temperature, air pressure and humidity) are exactly right. Anywhere where you have the correct combination of these conditions, you'll get a cloud. Anywhere that you don't, you don't.\n\nAreas with this kind of conditions don't occur in random tiny places. Instead, there will be a large area of one condition that gradually shifts into another. (If this doesn't make sense, think of just temperature. You don't get a different temperature at every spot on the globe. Instead, you get a large area of warm air that gradually shifts into a large area of cooler air. The same is true for air pressure and humidity.) This is why you get a large area of 'cloud' in one place and nothing at all in another. You can think of clouds as being physical maps of the weather conditions in the sky.\n\nThis is also what holds the clouds up. In general, if a cloud is high up in the sky, the conditions just below it aren't right for the cloud to form. As the water droplets fall, they reach areas with the wrong temperature or pressure and evaporate again. Only if the clouds become densely packed enough for the water to form large enough droplets can the droplets fall to the ground. Not all clouds form high up, either... sometimes the right conditions can occur at groundlevel, giving us fog.
98380
.   There is something called ball lightning. It drifts slowly along and can release its energy by exploding. I read that it had been reproduced in the lab using super high voltage generators.\n.    The light from a lightning bolt travels at the speed of light but the lightning bolt travels much slower. A lightning bolt consists of ionized atoms physically moveing through the air from the cloud toward the ground and a charge comeing up from the ground to meet it. I believe the whole process takes one hundreth of a second.
833749
Clouds are water vapor. Think of it like a pocket of fog in the sky.
866700
electricity produced due to flow of charges/electrons
665153
The exact reason is not proven, but suspected that it is because precipitation falls to the ground carrying electrons, and the lightning occurs when the difference in charges between the clouds and the ground even out, and the electrons jump back to the clouds.  That is why lightning is said to go from ground to the clouds.
176989
electric charges go from ground to sky. The lightning is the effect (also the thunder) of such traveling charges.
224271
Hello,\nLightening is caused due to the build up of electrons in the upper layers of the clouds during a storm. These electrons are attracted towards the positive potential of the earth, but the air gives a stiff resistance and does not allow the electricity to pass through. But when a huge potential has been accumulated, the electricity forces its way through the air molecules. This causes a lot of friction and hence releases heat energy. A tremendous amount of heat energy. This causes the air molecules to vibrate and this produces the cracking sound known as thunder. Thunder rattles the windows if it is loud enough. Sound is just the air particles vibrating and when the vibrating air molecules hit the window, they cause it to rattle. Lightning usually strikes the highest point and the most positively charged area. This is becuz lightning looks for the easiest way out of air. A high place means it has to travel less distance...
10241
Skyscrapers are prone to lightning strikes that could cause damage if not safely conducted to ground.  The mast on the Empire State Building in NYC is apt to be struck more than once in a single storm.  The grounding system must be operable at all times therefore it is unlikely that the lightning that is grounded could be put to useful work.  Also, the lightning voltage is highly variable and may be as strong as 6,000 Volts.  Electric charge dissipated to ground on a clear day would also be lost.  Incidentally, the sky may have both positive and negatively charged clouds since lightning strikes from cloud-to-cloud are common.  Charge is a relative thing.  Airplanes are also struck while passing between clouds and must be able to conduct electrical surges across movable airfoils to avoid welding hinges in a fixed position.  Conducting cables or straps are used in some applications.\n\nAdded 12/21/05.  Actually atmospheric charge does cause a current to ground and also along a power transmission line, especially as a result of sunspots and ionization of air.  An electrical engineer buddy told me that it was a great nusiance affecting global communication by cable and causing power grid outages.  I imagine that the power could be arrested and utilized but is not cost effective or steady enough to count on.  Still someone may find a way.  As you say it is free although the equipment may be costly.  Good luck.
570098
Clouds form when the invisible water vapor in the air condenses into visible water droplets or ice crystals. This can happen in three ways.\n\n1. The air is cooled below its saturation point. This happens when the air comes in contact with a cold surface or a surface that is cooling by radiation, or the air is cooled by adiabatic expansion (rising). This can happen\n\nalong warm and cold fronts (frontal lift), \nwhere air flows up the side of a mountain and cools as it rises higher into the atmosphere (orographic lift), \nby the convection caused by the warming of a surface by insolation (diurnal heating), \nwhen warm air blows over a colder surface such as a cool body of water. \n2. Clouds can be formed when two air masses below saturation point mix. Examples are breath on a cold day, aircraft contrails, and Arctic sea smoke.\n\n3. The air stays the same temperature but absorbs more water vapor into it until it reaches saturation.\n\n\nand there's lots more at....