It just doesn't seem possible, or right, or fair, that you
could be outside minding your own business, admiring your vegetable
garden perhaps with a cat or two at your side, when the sun comes
along and warms some of the air next to the ground, and
that this now bouyant air would begin to rise,
well maybe that's not too unreasonable yet, nor is the fact
that this
rising air would move into lower pressure
surroundings and expand, and that the expansion would take energy from
the air and cause the air to cool, and that the air could eventually
cool
to its dew point temperature and cause a cloud to form,
and that the air would continue to rise, expand, and cool
even more,
eventually dropping below freezing, and that ice crystals and
supercooled water droplets would begin to fill the middle of the cloud,
and that even on the hottest day in summer in Arizona the ice
crystal
process would produce
precipitation particles like graupel that would begin to fall from the
cloud, creating a strong downdraft, maybe even a microburst, and
that collisions between the various types of precipitation particles
would both create and separate electrical charge, and that positive
charge
would begin to buildup at the ground surface and that negative
charge
would accumulate in a layer in the middle of the cloud that the
negative
charge in the cloud would attract positive charge in the ground beneath
the cloud,
and that a complex series of processes could begin including
a stepped
leader, an
upward connecting discharge, and a powerful return stroke, and that a
bolt
of lightning could strike and kill the poor bloke
sitting in the chair on the ground.
It just doesn't seem possible, but it is.
