How Does Lightning Work?

This document discusses the causes of lightning. It explains that Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to study lightning in the 18th century and proved his hypothesis that lightning is electrical in nature by attaching a key to a kite during a storm. The document then describes how water accumulates in clouds during the water cycle, causing collisions that separate charges and create positive and negative regions within clouds. This charge separation generates an electric field that rips electrons from air molecules, forming a plasma channel that allows lightning to discharge rapidly between the cloud regions and ground.