"As tiny water droplets form inside a storm cloud, they are propelled towards the top of the cloud by strong internal winds where they turn to ice," Claydon toldk."Some of the pieces of ice grow into hail, but others remain very small. Some of the hail that forms becomes too heavy to be propelled by the updrafts and so begins to fall back through the cloud, bumping into smaller ice particles as they do so.
"As well as being attracted to the positive charge in the top of the cloud, the surplus of electrons in the cloud base are attracted to positive charge in other clouds and on the ground," Claydon said."If the attraction is strong enough, the electrons will rapidly move towards the positive atoms. The path they make in doing so forms the channel we see during a flash of lightning.
However, the inner cores of tropical cyclones—within about 60 miles of the center—produce surprisingly little lightning, according to the