Question: what is lightning ?

Lynne Thomas answered on 20 Jun 2014:

Lightening is a bit like a spark that you might see when static electricity builds up on earth – sometimes you feel it as an electric shock when you touch a metal. Clouds are essentially full of water vapour and when the water vapour gets cool enough, the water freezes and becomes ice. When these ice particles are moving around in the cloud they bump into each other and become charged. Lightening is what happens when the charge is discharged like when you get an electric shock from a build up of static. This usually happens within a cloud but sometimes the ground can become charged too (usually the tall things) and then the lightning hits a tree or a church spire for example.