The details of the charging process are still being studied by scientists, but

there is general agreement on some of the basic concepts of thunderstorm

electrification. Electrification can be by the triboelectric effect leading to
electron or ion transfer between colliding bodies. Uncharged, colliding water-drops
can become charged because of charge transfer between them (as aqueous ions) in an
electric field as would exist in a thunder cloud.[14] The main charging area in a
thunderstorm occurs in the central part of the storm where air is moving upward
rapidly (updraft) and temperatures range from −15 to −25 °C (5 to −13 °F); see
Figure 1. In that area, the combination of temperature and rapid upward air
movement produces a mixture of super-cooled cloud droplets (small water droplets
below freezing), small ice crystals, and graupel (soft hail). The updraft carries
the super-cooled cloud droplets and very small ice crystals upward.

At the same time, the graupel, which is considerably larger and denser, tends to
fall or be suspended in the rising air.[15]

The differences in the movement of the precipitation cause collisions to occur.

When the rising ice crystals collide with graupel, the ice crystals become
positively charged and the graupel becomes negatively charged; see Figure 2. The
updraft carries the positively charged ice crystals upward toward the top of the
storm cloud. The larger and denser graupel is either suspended in the middle of the
thunderstorm cloud or falls toward the lower part of the storm.[15]

The result is that the upper part of the thunderstorm cloud becomes positively
charged while the middle to lower part of the thunderstorm cloud becomes negatively
charged.[15]

The upward motions within the storm and winds at higher levels in the atmosphere
tend to cause the small ice crystals (and positive charge) in the upper part of the
thunderstorm cloud to spread out horizontally some distance from the thunderstorm
cloud base. This part of the thunderstorm cloud is called the anvil. While this is
the main charging process for the thunderstorm cloud, some of these charges can be
redistributed by air movements within the storm (updrafts and downdrafts). In
addition, there is a small but important positive charge buildup near the bottom of
the thunderstorm cloud due to the precipitation and warmer temperatures.[15]

The induced separation of charge in pure liquid water has been known since the
1840s as has the electrification of pure liquid water by the triboelectric effect.
[16]

William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) demonstrated that charge separation in water occurs
in the usual electric fields at the Earth's surface and developed a continuous
electric field measuring device using that knowledge.[17]

The physical separation of charge into different regions using liquid water was
demonstrated by Kelvin with the Kelvin water dropper. The most likely charge-
carrying species were considered to be the aqueous hydrogen ion and the aqueous
hydroxide ion.[18]

The electrical charging of solid water ice has also been considered. The charged
species were again considered to be the hydrogen ion and the hydroxide ion.[19][20]

An electron is not stable in liquid water concerning a hydroxide ion plus dissolved
hydrogen for the time scales involved in thunderstorms.[21]

The charge carrier in lightning is mainly electrons in a plasma.[22] The process of

going from charge as ions (positive hydrogen ion and negative hydroxide ion)
associated with liquid water or solid water to charge as electrons associated with
lightning must involve some form of electro-chemistry, that is, the oxidation
and/or the reduction of chemical species.[23] As hydroxide functions as a base and
carbon dioxide is an acidic gas, it is possible that charged water clouds in which
the negative charge is in the form of the aqueous hydroxide ion, interact with
atmospheric carbon dioxide to form aqueous carbonate ions and aqueous hydrogen
carbonate ions.

General considerations
Duration: 4 seconds.0:04
Four-second video of a lightning strike at Canyonlands National Park in Utah, U.S.
The typical cloud-to-ground lightning flash culminates in the formation of an
electrically conducting plasma channel through the air in excess of 5 km (3.1 mi)
tall, from within the cloud to the ground's surface. The actual discharge is the
final stage of a very complex process.[24] At its peak, a typical thunderstorm
produces three or more strikes to the Earth per minute.[25]

Lightning primarily occurs when warm air is mixed with colder air masses,[26]
resulting in atmospheric disturbances necessary for polarizing the atmosphere.[27]

Lightning can also occur during dust storms, forest fires, tornadoes, volcanic
eruptions, and even in the cold of winter, where the lightning is known as
thundersnow.[28][29] Hurricanes typically generate some lightning, mainly in the
rainbands as much as 160 km (99 mi) from the center.[30][31][32]

Distribution, frequency and extent

Main article: Distribution of lightning

Data obtained from April 1995 to February 2003 from NASA's Optical Transient
Detector depicting space-based sensors revealing the uneven distribution of
worldwide lightning strikes

A 768 km (477 mi) megaflash from Texas to Louisiana, in the United States.[33]
Lightning is not distributed evenly around Earth. On Earth, the lightning frequency
is approximately 44 (± 5) times per second, or nearly 1.4 billion flashes per
year[34] and the median duration is 0.52 seconds[35] made up from a number of much
shorter flashes (strokes) of around 60 to 70 microseconds.[36]

Many factors affect the frequency, distribution, strength and physical properties
of a typical lightning flash in a particular region of the world. These factors
include ground elevation, latitude, prevailing wind currents, relative humidity,
and proximity to warm and cold bodies of water. To a certain degree, the
proportions of intra-cloud, cloud-to-cloud, and cloud-to-ground lightning may also
vary by season in middle latitudes.

Because human beings are terrestrial and most of their possessions are on the Earth
where lightning can damage or destroy them, cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning is the
most studied and best understood of the three types, even though in-cloud (IC) and
cloud-to-cloud (CC) are more common types of lightning. Lightning's relative
unpredictability limits a complete explanation of how or why it occurs, even after
hundreds of years of scientific investigation. About 70% of lightning occurs over
land in the tropics[37] where atmospheric convection is the greatest.

This occurs from both the mixture of warmer and colder air masses, as well as
differences in moisture concentrations, and it generally happens at the boundaries
between them. The flow of warm ocean currents past drier land masses, such as the
Gulf Stream, partially explains the elevated frequency of lightning in the
Southeast United States. Because large bodies of water lack the topographic
variation that would result in atmospheric mixing, lightning is notably less
frequent over the world's oceans than over land. The North and South Poles are
limited in their coverage of thunderstorms and therefore result in areas with the
least lightning.[clarification needed]

In general, CG lightning flashes account for only 25% of all total lightning
flashes worldwide. Since the base of a thunderstorm is usually negatively charged,
this is where most CG lightning originates. This region is typically at the
elevation where freezing occurs within the cloud. Freezing, combined with
collisions between ice and water, appears to be a critical part of the initial
charge development and separation process. During wind-driven collisions, ice
crystals tend to develop a positive charge, while a heavier, slushy mixture of ice
and water (called graupel) develops a negative charge. Updrafts within a storm
cloud separate the lighter ice crystals from the heavier graupel, causing the top
region of the cloud to accumulate a positive space charge while the lower level
accumulates a negative space charge.

Because the concentrated charge within the cloud must exceed the insulating
properties of air, and this increases proportionally to the distance between the
cloud and the ground, the proportion of CG strikes (versus CC or IC discharges)
becomes greater when the cloud is closer to the ground. In the tropics, where the
freezing level is generally higher in the atmosphere, only 10% of lightning flashes
are CG. At the latitude of Norway (around 60° North latitude), where the freezing
elevation is lower, 50% of lightning is CG.[38][39]

Lightning is usually produced by cumulonimbus clouds, which have bases that are
typically 1–2 km (0.62–1.24 mi) above the ground and tops up to 15 km (9.3 mi) in
height.

The place on Earth where lightning occurs most often is over Lake Maracaibo,
wherein the Catatumbo lightning phenomenon produces 250 bolts of lightning a day.
[40] This activity occurs on average, 297 days a year.[41] The second most
lightning density is near the village of Kifuka in the mountains of the eastern
Democratic Republic of the Congo,[42] where the elevation is around 975 m (3,200
ft). On average, this region receives 158 lightning strikes per square kilometre
per year (410/sq mi/yr).[43] Other lightning hotspots include Singapore[44] and
Lightning Alley in Central Florida.[45][46]

According to the World Meteorological Organization, on April 29, 2020, a bolt 768
km (477.2 mi) long was observed in the southern U.S.—sixty km (37 mi) longer than
the previous distance record (southern Brazil, October 31, 2018).[47] A single
flash in Uruguay and northern Argentina on June 18, 2020, lasted for 17.1 seconds—
0.37 seconds longer than the previous record (March 4, 2019, also in northern
Argentina).[47]

Necessary conditions
Main article: Thunderstorm
In order for an electrostatic discharge to occur, two preconditions are necessary:
first, a sufficiently high potential difference between two regions of space must
exist, and second, a high-resistance medium must obstruct the free, unimpeded
equalization of the opposite charges. The atmosphere provides the electrical
insulation, or barrier, that prevents free equalization between charged regions of
opposite polarity.

It is well understood that during a thunderstorm there is charge separation and

aggregation in certain regions of the cloud; however, the exact processes by which
this occurs are not fully understood.[48]