[VIDEO] Birth of Bolt: Footage Shows 0.0003 Second Before Lightning Strikes

In a shocking observation, a new high-resolution slow-motion video captured one of, if not the most, detailed birth of a lightning bolt to ever be recorded.

The video captures a thread of electric current, or lightning leader, zipping down from a thundercloud to meet another leader reaching up from the ground. When the two touch, it triggers a much stronger current to surge between the cloud and the earth, and lightning flashes.

In 2017, during a lightning storm, Rubin Jiang, an atmospheric scientist at Beijing's Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his colleagues captured two lightning leaders on tape.

Using a high-speed camera that snapped every 2.6 microseconds (0.00003 second) an image of the lightning bolt, Jiang and his colleagues saw a play-by-play of what happened when each lightning leader hit the fringe of streamers at the top.

Streamer

The researchers reported online on February 1 on the Geophysical Research Letters that a single string of electricity, or streamer, at the frayed tip of each lightning leader is necessary to forge the link between the two currents. It is crucial to consider this cloud-to-ground relation since it decides when lightning strikes.

It was observed that streamers at the tips of lightning leaders bound these currents together. But because streamers are so faint and lightning leaders merge in a millionth of a second, it was unclear precisely how they fused.

Many overlapping streamers coalescing into a single electric current channel, or communication between single streamers from each chief, may forge the connection.

Right before the bolt of lightning, a single flickering thread of electricity emerged between the leaders. This means that the hairline connection between the first two streamers to strike channeled the electric current torrent that produced the burst of lightning, while the other streamers fizzled out.

How Is Lightning Formed?

Lightning is a blinding flash of electricity that a thunderstorm creates. It is very dangerous. Every year, lightning kills and injures more people than storms or tornadoes, between 75 and 100 people.

Many tiny pieces of ice (frozen raindrops) bump against each other inside a thundercloud high up in the clouds as they pass about in the air. An electric charge is generated from both of those collisions. The whole cloud fills up with electrical charges for a while.

At the top of the cloud, the positive charges or protons form, and at the bottom of the cloud, the negative charges or electrons form. This allows a positive charge to build up under the cloud in the atmosphere. The electric charging grounds focus on everything that sticks out, such as cliffs, persons, or single trees. The charge from these points finally combines with a charge from the clouds reaching down.

Thunder or Lightning

Lightning triggers thunder. It literally opens a little hole in the air, called a channel, as a lightning bolt travels from the cloud to the earth. The air collapses back in and produces a sound wave that we hear as thunder until the light is out.

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