Types of Lightning
Type↕ | Location↕ | Color↕ | Typical Duration (ms)↕ | Danger Level↕ | Notes↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cloud-to-Ground (CG) | Between cloud base and ground | White to pale blue | 30 | Very high | Most common lethal form; causes most lightning deaths |
Cloud-to-Cloud (CC) | Between two separate clouds | White-purple | 50 | Low (airborne only) | Does not reach ground; sometimes called 'sheet lightning' |
Intra-Cloud (IC) | Within a single thundercloud | Diffuse white/blue | 100 | Low | Most common type of all lightning; stays inside the cloud |
Ball Lightning | Near ground or indoors | Yellow, orange, red | 5,000 | Moderate to high | Rare, spherical, floats for seconds; still poorly understood |
Sprite | 50-90 km altitude above thunderstorms | Red with blue tendrils | 20 | None (upper atmosphere) | Transient luminous event (TLE); discovered by video in 1989 |
Elve | ~90 km altitude (ionosphere) | Red | 1 | None | Expanding disc of light caused by EMP from lightning |
Blue Jet | 18-70 km altitude above storm top | Blue cone | 200 | None | Upward-shooting conical flash; rare, photographed from ISS |
Gigantic Jet | Up to 90 km altitude | Blue to red | 300 | None | Extremely rare; bridges thunderstorms and ionosphere |
Positive Lightning | Cloud-to-ground (from anvil top) | Bright white | 100 | Extremely high | Far more powerful than negative CG; can strike miles from storm |
Negative Lightning | Cloud-to-ground (cloud base) | White-blue | 30 | High | Most common CG flash; negative charge travels to ground |
Heat Lightning | Distant thunderstorm | Faint white/yellow | 100 | None (too far to hear) | Same as normal lightning but too far away for thunder to reach observer |
Ribbon Lightning | Cloud-to-ground | White parallel strands | 100 | High | Wind blows successive strokes sideways, creating a ribbon pattern |
Staccato Lightning | Cloud-to-ground | Bright white | 10 | High | Very short-duration, very bright single stroke |
Forked Lightning | Cloud-to-ground | White-blue | 40 | High | Main channel branches into multiple forks toward ground |
Bead Lightning | Cloud-to-ground (fading stage) | Orange-yellow beads | 1,000 | Moderate | Lightning channel breaks into glowing segments as it fades |
Volcanic Lightning | Volcanic ash plumes | White-purple | 50 | High | Caused by charge separation in erupting ash columns |
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