15 Types of Blue Lightning vs. Regular Lightning: Latest Scientific Discoveries

10. Streamers: The Building Blocks of Blue Lightning

Streamers are the basic elements of many of the more major events covered previously, not a separate kind of blue lightning itself. Streamers, unlike the obvious bolts of ordinary lightning, are small plasma channels that start the paths for electrical discharges in the upper atmosphere. Complex dynamics of streamer generation and propagation have been exposed by recent high-resolution images and computer simulations. Because of reduced air density at higher altitudes, scientists have found that streamers in blue lightning episodes behave differently from those in ordinary lightning. Different branching patterns and propagation speeds resulting from this difference define the several varieties of blue lightning. Predicting and modelling more general-scale atmospheric electrical events depends on an awareness of streamer behaviour. Not only in atmospheric research but also in disciplines including plasma physics and electrical engineering this information finds uses.