Letting Go – Day 4
Letting Go – Day 4
By Jenny Griffin
Systems of Nature: Thunderstorms
August growing up in Southern Ontario always brought spectacular thunderstorms. I remember the humidity (oh lord, the humidity!) that gave way to the storms. As if the heavens themselves had opened, the rain came barreling down, thunder shook the sky, and lightning could be seen for miles. It was sweet relief from the heat and mugginess that had made us all tired and irritable. As a child, I never considered the process involved, but appreciated nonetheless the coolness of the rain, the power contained within the storms, and the sweet, fresh scent of warmth earth afterwards. Today, I’m going to examine the processes involved in thunderstorms and how they relate to letting go.
Very basically, thunderstorms are formed by hot, moist air rising from the earth and meeting a colder layer of air somewhere in the stratosphere. The moisture forms ice crystals, some of which fall to the earth, as (in this case, they melt in the heat) rain. On the way down, they pass other ice chunks which are being pushed up by the updrafts of hot air, and are stripped of their negative electrons. The result is an ever-building supply of static electricity. At some point, the energy builds to such a point that it lets go, finding a positive charge on the earth to ground itself. The thunder is how we hear the result of a supersonic shockwave caused by the lightning.
