When water in the atmosphere falls back down to Earth it is called precipitation. There are many different types of precipitation including rain, freezing rain, drizzle, snow, sleet, hail and even virga. Precipitation plays a major role in the water cycle – which can be grossly simplified as: water evaporates from earth and goes up into the atmosphere, then falls back to earth as precipitation.
When water particles in the atmosphere rub against each other an electric charge can build up. This electric charge build up can then strike earth as lightning.
This is a photo sequence containing 70 lightning bolts.
In order to make the sequence, the photographer set the camera to a tripod taking 20 second shots continuously. After 83 minutes he ended up with approximately 90 lightning shots. He then had to exclude around 20 because the photo condensed so much that didn’t look nice.
Tags: Meteorology
