How does lightning form and where does it occur?
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Lightning creates thunder, by rapidly heating the surrounding air. The heated air expands explosively and compresses the air immediately around the heated area.
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In order for a tornado to form, a number of different things have to happen. The first thing that has to happen is that you have to have two different patches of air moving toward each other from opposite directions, with a warm one on the bottom and a cool one on the top.\n\nThe next thing that happens is that the warm air rises. (You may have learned about hot air rising in school.) After the warm air goes up, the cool air comes down to take its place. So now the warm and cool patches of air are moving side to side and up and down. So they make a spinning patch of air along the ground. This is probably pretty hard to imagine, so check out the picture:\n\nUsually when a tornado is starting, it happens during a storm. So there's lots of air moving around already. If a draft of air from the storm comes along close to the ground and then moves upwards (called an "up-draft"), it will pull the spinning air upwards.\n\nNow comes the part that we don't understand quite as well. So far the spinning air is still really really wide. Somehow it gets pulled in really tight so that it makes a tornado. (Scientists aren't exactly sure why this happens sometimes but not at other times.)
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Electricity of any kind, including that generating lightning, is caused by a potential difference in charge between two object-in this case, between the water in the ocean and the storm, which generates ionic imbalance.  The lightning transfers charge from one to the other, equalizing it.  Thus, the charge from the lightning disperses into the water-within a few 10s of feet of the strike, even a large lightning bolt will have dispersed the electrical charge sufficiently that it would not kill fish.  Seawater, though a good conducter, in this case is not conducting the electricity anywhere-it is the terminal acceptor of electical charge.
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Thunderstorms form when significant condensation, resulting in the production of a wide range of water droplets and ice crystals, occurs in an atmosphere that is unstable and supports deep, rapid upward motion. This often occurs in the presence of three conditions: sufficient moisture accumulated in the lower atmosphere, reflected by high dewpoint temperatures; a significant fall in air temperature with increasing height, known as a steep lapse rate; and a force such as mechanical convergence along a cold front that will focus the lift.
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Thunder is caused by lightning. The sound is made as the air around the lightning bolt rapidly heats and cools. The air around a lightning strike is heated to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (27,500 C), as the air cools it causes a shock wave to occur known as thunder. The closer the lightning is, the louder the clap of thunder will be. You can think of thunder as nature's way of warning you to take cover to avoid being struck by lightning.
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Lightening (which causes the thunder) is caused by a static electrical charge build up inside very high clouds. The static build up is caused by the collision and rubbing of small ice particles way up in the clouds. If these particles get big enough they will fall down and depending on the temperature outside will either melt into rain, or could initiate crystal formation (snow).\n\nSo you see, there is nothing about whether its rain or snow that effects the mechanism of lightning generation. The reason that it is less common in the winter is that in order to produce the very high lightning generating clouds (anvil-topped cummilonimbus [sorry if spelt wrong!]) it requires very strong updrafts - This is more likely in the summer when the hot sun beating down heats air rapidly so it shoots up fast. But there are conditions in winter that can have the same effect (like collision between warm and cold fronts).
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natural LIGHTING comes from the sun,\notherwise, usually from an electric light bulb\n\nHowever, LIGHTNING, is a dual attraction between the sky and the ground, but physically speaking the negative charge in the sky is seeking out a positive charge on the ground, the LIGHTNING comes FROM THE SKY.\nHowever, you may not often see this and since there is a return of the lightning energy back up to the sky, (to balance the energy) so if you look after the sound of thunder you are seeing the return.
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Yeah, it does...The truth is, lightning tries to find the shortest distance to ground (The Earth). Although the odds are favorable that lightning won't strike the same place twice, there is nothing in nature to prevent it. It can strike 3 or 4 times in the same spot.
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Thunderstorms mostly originate at low pressure areas. The low pressure draws in air and clounds of different electric charges which when they collide gives lightning.
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Don't think of Lightening as a form, think of it as a force.  The force manifests itself in that bright column as that force moves through the air.  Take a look at this video, not only is lightening not completely understood by science but our ideas about what triggers it are changing.
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Hurricanes typically don't produce much lightning, but sometimes they can.\n\nHere is a website with some investigation about this.\n\n http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd16jun99_1.htm
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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.
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Lightning is a powerful natural electrostatic discharge produced during a thunderstorm. This abrupt electric discharge is accompanied by the emission of visible light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. The electric current passing through the discharge channels rapidly heats and expands the air into plasma, producing acoustic shock waves (thunder) in the atmosphere.\n\n\nThe saying "lightning never strikes twice in the same place" is false. The Empire State Building is struck by lightning on average 100 times each year, and was once struck 15 times in 15 minutes.\n\n\nk.m.
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Look, lightning and thunder HAPPEN at the same time. Lightning causes the air to displace and when it contracts again (immediately) you get thunder, the sound of air filling a gap. You see lightning first because it is traveling @ 180,000 mps, thunder travels at the speed of sound (depends on where you live). You can generally determine how far away you are from the place of origin by counting 1 one-hundred, 2 one hundred, etc until you hear thunder and divide that number by two. That is how many miles away you are.\n\nBTW, if you see lightning and hear thunder at the same time, the event is right where you are!
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ah ha my kinda question. lightning comes down only to a point above the strike point then a contacting point comes up from the strike point and connects with the down charge completing the circut. then the charge goes up and down several times. thats what causes the bright flash. here are some pages that will help.
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That kind of lightning are usually called  cloud to clud lightning, and  occurs  at very high altitudes between clouds at different altitudes (1,000 ft,).  there's no thunder because  the charges are  not  making ground like when they touch  earth.