Do they attract lightning?
213359
a good radar reflective surface has to be hard and flat, just like a ball bouncing back off a wall, you want the radar reflection to bounce back to the receiver with most of the strength that was sent out so you can get a good 'reflection'\nthe balloon is round so not a good reflective target, the aluminium is a metal so a good reflective material, it all depends on the line of sight as well. If the balloon was right in the middle of the radar beam width it might give of a weak sig? depends on the size of the balloon as well. A huge blimp of that material would give a better reflection than a normal size balloon. Hope this was a help.
617278
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.
167566
Lightning is an electric current. Within a thundercloud, many small bits of ice bump into each other as they swirl around in the air. All those collisions create an electrical charge, just like the one that builds up in you when you cross a carpet.\n\nAfter a while, the whole cloud fills up with electrical charges (usually with a negative charge closest to the earth). Since opposites attract each other, that causes a positive charge to build up on the ground beneath the cloud. The ground's electrical charge concentrates around anything that sticks up, such as mountains, lone trees, people, or even blades of grass. The charge streaming up from these points eventually connects with a charge reaching down from the clouds, and--zap!--lightning strikes.\n\nThe intense heat of the lightning bolt causes the surrounding air to explode outward with a gigantic boom--thunder.
485616
no it is not harmfull however if lightning stikes at your house or a neighbours your electricity will surge therefore damaging everything that is pluged into an electrical socket. \n\nit is not harmful if nothing near you gets struck by lightning!
9707
buildings do not reach into ionosphere. Surface of eath has zero charge (hence grounding). Lightning goes  from a cloud to the ground, or into another cloud. \n\nAll tall buildings have lighning protection, i.e. a thick metal wire going from top-most point and into the ground.
223023
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.
235827
There are eight diffrent kinds  of lightning \nthere is a upward stroke but the first is downward  so your both right but the down comes first......\n the website below has all the info on lightning all eight kinds. I hope it was a good bet to win..
52594
When lighning strikes, is causing the surrounding air to get extreamly hot and expand very quickly, causing thunder.\n\nSince you can see the efffects of lighning, you can tell pretty much instantly when a bold a lightning struck, it takes virtually no time for the light to travel to you.\nOn the other hand, the sound of the thunder travels at the speed of sound (MUCH slower than light), so it can take a significant amount of time for you to "hear" the effects of the lighning.\n\nSince the lighning bolt and the thunk clap pretty much occur at the same time, using the difference in the amount of time for you to detect them can tell you how far away they occured (since we know the approx. seed of sound is ~5 miles / sec).\nFor every 1 second that goes by between seeing the lighning and hearing the thunder, you are 5 miles away from there it occured.
16103
lightning occurs when warm air hits cooler air causing friction.  lightning during a snow storm is rare because warm air is harder to come by, however it happens occaissonally when a cold front follows a period of unseasonably warm weather.
447532
electrostatic charging.... the hair was attracted to the ceiling positively maybe.... you can electrically charge something by rubbing them.. this is the same thing when we comb our hair and then the hair is like attracted to the comb....\nand the ceiling is neutrally (or or or negatively) charged... that's why they got like magnetted to the top....
401900
spark,lightning,thunder,shower
88870
hypothetically yes. suppose there r high tension electric wires & due to dew electric current passed in air & causes a fire on some paper, trees, oil etc.
651712
Yes, I think this is a possible explanation. \n\nThere is a technique used in prospecting for copper sulfides that measures self-potential of the ground to detect the ore body. Copper sulfide, when in contact with groundwater can become sort of a natural battery. The voltages involved are quite small, in milliVolts, but it seems reasonable that if there is enough variation of the ground charge between your hill and the surrounding area, it could attract a strike. If your hill happens to be closer the affected charged groundwater, that could also be a possible explanation. \nHere is a website that explains the geologic prospecting technique of both self-potential and induced polarization techniques:\nhttp://electrochem.cwru.edu/ed/encycl/art-m02-metals.htm\n\nHere is another website that explains the basic concept:\nhttp://www.cflhd.gov/agm/geoApplications/SurfaceMethods/931SelfPotentialMethod.htm\n\nYou might want to consider some type of warning system. A simple battery powered AM radio will detect lightning strikes quite well simply by the loud static. There are software programs that come with simple black-box detectors that will both record lightning as it strikes and give a location of the strike. See:\nhttp://www.boltek.com/stracker.htm\n\nA more sophisticated type of system is one like that available from ThorGuard at:\nhttp://thorguard.com/faq.asp\nThorguard claims to detect lightning before it strikes and I don't see any prices listed on the page so it may be expensive. (Also, the ThorGuard home page crashed my Firefox browser- so be warned that they have a poorly designed web page)\n\nIt would be interesting to set up a continuous reading self-potential measurement in your area and see if it was indeed possible to predict a localized lightning strike. \n\nHere is a good lightning safety website:\nhttp://www.lightningsafety.com/
546572
ASOS The Automated Surface Observing Systems  uses an array of sensors to detect weather phenomena I.E.  Rain, Wind, Tempature, Lightning and other weather related information\n   Available technologies of the present day lightning detectors include: \n\na. Radio Frequency (RF) Detectors. These measure energy discharges from lightning.  They can determine the approximate distance and direction of the threat.  \n\nb. Inferometers. These are multi-station devices, much more costly than RF detectors. They measure lightning strike data more precisely. Usually they require a skilled operator.\n\n\nd. Atmospheric Field  Mill Monitors. These measure the potential gradient (voltage) changes of the earth's electric field and report changes as thresholds build to lightning breakdown values.  \n\ne. e. Optical Monitors. These can provide earlier warning as they detect cloud-to-     cloud lightning that typically precedes cloud-to-ground lightning.
31397
The tree can suffer burns without catching on fire.  This has happened to many people.  For more on lightning read this:\nhttp://www.insuremyhouse.com/lightning.html
225497
Yes, it is possible for lightning to strike water.  It happens all the time.  Lightning is the result of a difference in potential between two bodies.  When the potential is great enough, electricity jumps from the negatively charged body to the positively charged body.  The two bodies can be a cloud and a tree, a cloud and the ground or a cloud and water or from one cloud to another.  Therefore, lightning can be cloud to ground, cloud to cloud or even within a cloud.  What happens when the lightening bolt strikes the water is that at the immediate point of the strike, the temperature of the water instantly reaches the boiling point.  Given the extreme temperature of a lightning bolt and the extreme charge, I would suspect that not only is steam formed but a plasma is also likely formed at the immediate point of the strike.  As to what happens to any biological life at the point of the strike, it would depend on how near they are to the strike.  The closer they are to it, the more likely that they could be killed by the sudden change in temperature and potential.
239961
You cannot make natural storm lightening.\n\nFor artificial lightening, look for plans for a Tesla coil.