For as long as people have watched storms roll across the sky, lightning has inspired awe and fear. You can see the flash and hear the thunder, but the true beginning of a lightning bolt has remained ...

A Penn State-led research team has unraveled the long-standing mystery of how lightning begins inside thunderclouds. Their findings offer the first quantitative, physics-based explanation for ...

In the recent edition of Nature, groundbreaking results about the gamma-ray emissions produced during thunderstorms are presented. Overall, these findings reveal that gamma-ray emission from ...

Lightning has captivated scientists for centuries, but despite extensive research, the precise atmospheric conditions that trigger a lightning strike within thunderclouds have remained a profound ...

A NASA-funded researcher has discovered that tiny airborne particles of pollution may modify developing thunderclouds by increasing the quantity and reducing the size of ice crystals within them.

Thunderclouds—and the plane-racking turbulence that goes on inside them—are a constant menace to a pilot. He cannot always tell whether the cloud ahead is dangerous or not. Last week both the airlines ...