Cascading cloudsIsaac MooreAward: Top 100
School: skyview high school This picture depicts a sunset-lit thunderstorm, along with a lightning strike along a line of what looks like a cloud waterfall. The cloudy waterfall effect was created by the precipitating hail, and caused a large increase in molecular collisions within the clouds. These collisions cause electrons to transfer between molecules, building up a large static charge, and once the charge is great enough, the difference in charge between the ground and clouds can overcome the inductive properties of air and create a lightning strike. This strike is accompanied by the beautiful sunset, a phenomenon that occurs due to the light of the sun passing through more of the atmosphere, scattering the longer violet and blue wavelengths and leaving behind the longer orange and red wavelengths. This effect is then amplified by the reflections and refractions from the clouds. All of these effects combine to create this breathtaking scene. 
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