Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's your mom's neighbor who dresses up that
Speaker 1: ceramic goose on our porch. Ali Ward, I'm back with
Speaker 1: another episode fiery, one of ologies. This is one of
Speaker 1: those very very many years in the making episodes where
Speaker 1: as soon as I decided to make this podcast ology,
Speaker 1: so I was like, I got a hit up this
Speaker 1: expert and I put them on a list. This interview
Speaker 1: it's electric, okay, So fulmonology, let's get into it. Very
Speaker 1: much a thing. It's the science of those streaks in
Speaker 1: the sky and it comes from the Latin word fulgaa,
Speaker 1: which means to shine or to flash. Also, if you
Speaker 1: have a fear of thunder and lightning, you're not alone.
Speaker 1: I'm looking straight at you, my dog Remy, and also
Speaker 1: my dear sister friend Shannon Feltis you have something that
Speaker 1: is called coronophobia. It's also inexplicably named astrophobia, brontophobia, and pnotrophobia.
Speaker 1: So let's learn a little bit more about it. So
Speaker 1: kick your boots up, lean back on your porch chair,
Speaker 1: and enjoy some facts about thunder and lightning and storms
Speaker 1: and volcanoes and of course wildfires with lightning scientists and
Speaker 1: your favorite folmonologist Chris Gizzigi.
Speaker 2: My name is Chris Gigi pronounce he He.
Speaker 1: Did you grow up with with fires and lightning really
Speaker 1: on your radar on your doppler since you were a kid,
Speaker 1: or where did you start getting into this?
Speaker 3: Well, it's you know, it's funny because California in general,
Speaker 3: a lot of people think, oh, yeah, California's kind of boring.
Speaker 2: Maybe they got some earthquakes here and there too.
Speaker 3: So growing up in Sonoma County, I really don't remember
Speaker 3: a lot of fire activity. We don't really get too
Speaker 3: much thunder, and it was one of those things where
Speaker 3: we're just like, oh, you know, at the time, being
Speaker 3: a firefighter would be cool. Maybe I'll be able to
Speaker 3: do that, you know, kind of macho and you know,
Speaker 3: let's get out there. Yeah, bro, firefighting. It really wasn't
Speaker 3: until maybe later years of high school or I started thinking, ah,
Speaker 3: you know, that'd be kind of cool, and then you
Speaker 3: go to college and I'm like, wow, Actually, the science
Speaker 3: of this stuff is a lot more fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: Ah. And so how much of your work deals with
Speaker 1: fire science and how much deals with lightning or is
Speaker 1: it kind of an equal amount.
Speaker 2: It's kind of an equal amount.
Speaker 3: My research in particular is more lightning and we look
Speaker 3: more at the electrical magnetic properties of it. Let's say
Speaker 3: we're trying to figure out a way to build more
Speaker 3: confidence in our lightning models for prediction, more projections, and
Speaker 3: then we relate that mostly to to a typical quote
Speaker 3: unquote would be fire season, which is usually your late
Speaker 3: spring or summer months through fall. We come up with
Speaker 3: some sort of projection system to say, all right, these
Speaker 3: areas have high risk of lightning, and because during these
Speaker 3: months when these certain conditions are met, lightning caused fires
Speaker 3: could be issues here.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, this is a huge issue, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: put a pin in it for a second and get
Speaker 1: to the basics of lightning. What does it look like,
Speaker 1: how does it work? And is the sky mad?
Speaker 2: Bro?
Speaker 1: What exactly is lightning? Where is it going?
Speaker 2: Oh? So the story of lightning?
Speaker 3: Oh yes, okay, So to kind of set a tone here,
Speaker 3: the way I think of the process of lightning happening
Speaker 3: is I think about all these little molecules and particles
Speaker 3: that are happening within the cloud and happening.
Speaker 2: Within the atmosphere, and.
Speaker 3: Are you know, flowing in the earth, And I always
Speaker 3: like to think of them as an emoji, where as
Speaker 3: little emojis running around with different smiley faces or positive
Speaker 3: charge and negative charges, and you know, and they have
Speaker 3: this goal in life, and that's to find find something
Speaker 3: of the opposite charge and connect with it and do
Speaker 3: this little dance, and then they go into the great
Speaker 3: beyond afterwards wherever that is, whatever they're doing, whatever they're
Speaker 3: doing there. So lightning is it's a development of a
Speaker 3: certain cloud type called cumulatim miss clouds. And what happens
Speaker 3: is within these clouds, the clouds formed because we typically
Speaker 3: have updrafts of air. Warm air rises, so we get updrafts,
Speaker 3: and as it rises, it runs into the altitude, so
Speaker 3: you get higher up and higher up it gets a
Speaker 3: little colder, and so as that air rises, it kind
Speaker 3: of cools and condenses and a little droplets form around, particulates,
Speaker 3: little ice crystals can form, and they're banging around in there,
Speaker 3: having a good old time, hitting each other, bumping, doing whatever.
Speaker 3: And and at that point you kind of you start
Speaker 3: to build up like this static charge. It's electrostatic charge.
Speaker 3: It's in the clouds. As electrons start to get stripped
Speaker 3: or transferred from one to the other. And so during
Speaker 3: this process, eventually what happens is these clouds when they're
Speaker 3: starting to get ready, when they're priming themselves for a
Speaker 3: lightning event, they separate themselves. So the negative charges go
Speaker 3: down towards the bottom of the cloud and the positive
Speaker 3: charges go towards the middle of the top of the cloud.
Speaker 3: And this is because what weather is, it's a neutralization process.
Speaker 3: So we're trying to get these electrons that are up
Speaker 3: in the cloud down to Earth and want to neutralize
Speaker 3: themselves at Earth, bring them back to where they belong,
Speaker 3: so they separate themselves up there, and then at the
Speaker 3: same time they're separating themselves in other clouds, or they're
Speaker 3: separating themselves.
Speaker 2: At the ground.
Speaker 3: So on the ground level you might have the electrons
Speaker 3: will actually get pushed down further to further lowers of
Speaker 3: the ground, which leaves nothing but a positive charge stuck
Speaker 3: at the surface. Just opposites attract like charges repel each other.
Speaker 3: So the electrons in the cloud are going to help
Speaker 3: push those down, those electrons in the ground down even
Speaker 3: further into the ground, and that leaves a nice positive
Speaker 3: charge on the surface. So what happens then is once
Speaker 3: everything gets kind of built up, then those charges are
Speaker 3: gonna look to connect somewhere, and so sometimes they're gonna
Speaker 3: interconnect within the cloud. Sometimes they're gonna connect between one
Speaker 3: cloud and another, which is cloud to cloud, or sometimes
Speaker 3: they're going to try and connect with the charges that
Speaker 3: are on the ground, and that would be cloud to
Speaker 3: ground lighting.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So these ice particles are just having an
Speaker 1: airborne mashpit. Some are losing electrons, some are gaining them,
Speaker 1: and this tension builds and then the moshpit divides with
Speaker 1: the negative charges heading to the bottom. Now, as for
Speaker 1: cloud to ground lightning, electrons on the Earth's surface get
Speaker 1: pushed further into the ground. So positive charge are kind
Speaker 1: of simmering on the ground and they have to meet
Speaker 1: each other and then boom, lightning strikes to neutralize it,
Speaker 1: and the mash pit goes wild. They love it, and
Speaker 1: then they're like, you know.
Speaker 3: The ones coming from the cloud to the ground. What
Speaker 3: I picture is is after enough electrostatic charges has built
Speaker 3: up in the clouds, they're not ready to go, and
Speaker 3: you have something called step leaders and streamers, and these
Speaker 3: are kind of the leading molecule, the leading chargers that
Speaker 3: are getting out there and ready to go.
Speaker 1: So these are step leaders that reach down toward the
Speaker 1: ground and streamers down below that reach up.
Speaker 3: And so I picture these these little charges strapping on
Speaker 3: a helmet, putting on their goggles, and the step leaders
Speaker 3: are up in the cloud and they're shouting out at
Speaker 3: the streamers down in the ground, you know, step leader
Speaker 3: to streamer leader, step leader to streamer leader over streamer,
Speaker 3: two step leader, streamer two step leader, coffee dot, bring
Speaker 3: to engage, all right. When they turn around and they
Speaker 3: get all the other electrons riled up, Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 3: So then they throw on some heavy metal music and
Speaker 3: start They gets for that. Yeah yeah, so they you know,
Speaker 3: and they take off and they the step leaders kind
Speaker 3: of the initiator of these lightning strikes, and so they
Speaker 3: take off towards the ground, and they have no idea
Speaker 3: where they're going. They have no idea where these other
Speaker 3: charges are on the ground because there's such a distance
Speaker 3: between them. They can only really communicate about fifty meters
Speaker 3: or so. So that's why you start to see lightning
Speaker 3: in jagged forms, because it's these uh, these electrons trying
Speaker 3: to reach the ground that are trying to find the
Speaker 3: opposite charge.
Speaker 2: But really can't.
Speaker 3: So they shoot out intervals and they take this jagged
Speaker 3: path until eventually they connect with it and then they
Speaker 3: meet together and the streamers, so the charges on the
Speaker 3: ground will actually reach up sometime and try and meet
Speaker 3: them at a certain point.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now, what about like dry lightning or heat lightning,
Speaker 1: the kind of lightning that we've had in California lately
Speaker 1: that has been sparking fires.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dry lightning is it's basically just lightning with very
Speaker 3: very minimal.
Speaker 2: To no precipitation.
Speaker 3: So what happens is you get your typical thunderstorm build up,
Speaker 3: but the precipitation evaporates before it gets to the ground,
Speaker 3: and that's when you see clouds that are called virga,
Speaker 3: and virga is just just a formation, so it looks
Speaker 3: like stuff's coming out of the cloud, but then it
Speaker 3: evaporates and you still get lightning at the same time
Speaker 3: because there's such a build up of charge going on
Speaker 3: up there in the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Any How, hot is a lightning strike. I've read that
Speaker 1: it's potentially hotter than the sun.
Speaker 3: Hotter than the surface of the Sun. So yeah, so
Speaker 3: it can reach up to like fifty to sixty thousand
Speaker 3: degrees fahrenheit. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that's nuts. And so you've got that
Speaker 1: striking a dry hillside and it's just like a like
Speaker 1: tinder box.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So those are one of the things I look
Speaker 3: for in fire weather under certain types of red flag
Speaker 3: conditions is the possibility of dry lightning.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to get back to fires in a bit,
Speaker 1: but first, what about counting lightning and thunder? We've seen
Speaker 1: it in a million movies. You count, you can do
Speaker 1: a calculation. You can know how far away the storm is,
Speaker 1: if it's coming or going. Is that flim flam or
Speaker 1: is that real deal?
Speaker 2: No? Typically, you actually kind of can.
Speaker 3: So the general rule is that you see a lightning
Speaker 3: strike and you count, and every five seconds is about
Speaker 3: a mile okay, yeah, And so if you're outside or
Speaker 3: whatever you want to know if it's safe to go
Speaker 3: out side, then you generally try and get to a
Speaker 3: point where you see lightning but don't hear any thunder.
Speaker 1: Oh good to know. So it's far enough away where
Speaker 1: it's not going to come and get you. Yeah, does
Speaker 1: it usually want to discharge or connect with a charge
Speaker 1: that's higher up? Like, is that why there's lightning rods,
Speaker 1: or do trees get zapped a lot?
Speaker 3: So the reason we have lightning rods or the reason
Speaker 3: that a very tall tree might be one of the
Speaker 3: worst spots to stand under or isolated tall trees is
Speaker 3: they're providing a path.
Speaker 2: Of least resistance.
Speaker 3: So when these storms come, these charges from the ground
Speaker 3: are able to kind of flow up into those places
Speaker 3: and connect with the lightning that's coming out of the atmosphere.
Speaker 3: Because they happen to be tall, the charges are able
Speaker 3: to meet a little bit earlier.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: We are about to get to listener questions, but before
Speaker 1: we do, we're going to hear about sponsors of the
Speaker 1: show who have some deals for you. Those deals make
Speaker 1: it possible for us to throw some cash at worthwhile
Speaker 1: nonprofits each other episode, and this week Chris asked that
Speaker 1: it goes to international relief teams whose mission is to
Speaker 1: alleviate the suffering caused by poverty and disaster around the globe.
Speaker 1: So Jichang, keep doing good stuff, y'all. Now you may
Speaker 1: hear about some sponsors who enable us to not freak
Speaker 1: out about giving away money every week. All right, Questions
Speaker 1: from our loyal Patreon folks Okay, I'm going to dive
Speaker 1: in to the lightning round if he will correct and
Speaker 1: just whatever answers strike, you go for it the worst, Okay.
Speaker 1: Emily A wants to know is it true that thunder
Speaker 1: is the sound of lightning? And a few other people
Speaker 1: wanted to know first time question askers and boot quakers
Speaker 1: Luna Lowry and Kate h why it's so scary? Why
Speaker 1: is thunder scary? Any idea? Is it a certain like
Speaker 1: frequency or is it just because it's so loud?
Speaker 2: Well, I'd be right. Some might find it scary.
Speaker 3: I would find it extremely fascinating and joyous, somewhat of
Speaker 3: an adrenaline Russia at certain moments. Yeah, but yeah, thunder
Speaker 3: is the sound of lightning because without lightning you don't
Speaker 3: have thunder, kind of.
Speaker 2: Like we talked about.
Speaker 3: And because lightning there's so much energy and so much
Speaker 3: heat that is created by lightning that energy, the air
Speaker 3: around it cannot expand fast enough, so pressure is shot
Speaker 3: out around these areas where lightning strike has just gone
Speaker 3: down and produces a shock wave, and that shockwave becomes
Speaker 3: a sound wave, and so that's what we hears thunder.
Speaker 3: It can be really scary because the ground is shaking,
Speaker 3: the airs rumbling, So yeah, I guess it could be scary.
Speaker 1: A bunch of people. Sam Healey first time question asker
Speaker 1: JJ Pierce Chris Moore for some question Asker Rachel Dashiel
Speaker 1: and Asia Jaeger wanted to know about hair standing up
Speaker 1: during a thunderstorm, and Sam says, my shoulder length hair
Speaker 1: was standing completely on end once when I was standing
Speaker 1: in a field during a thunderstorm, and I found out
Speaker 1: later that was not a good sign. I was fourteen,
Speaker 1: and so O forgive my ignorance, But if you're around
Speaker 1: something dangerous like a lightning storm, or does your hair
Speaker 1: just statically kind of do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a reaction to the static that's in the atmosphere.
Speaker 3: So what's happening during a lightning event is you're producing
Speaker 3: something that's electric and magnetic, and there's electrostatic that's happening
Speaker 3: before these lightning strikes are coming, or as a storm
Speaker 3: is approaching. So if there's a storm approaching, especially if
Speaker 3: there's that much build up of an electrical charge the
Speaker 3: static in the atmosphere, yeah, your hairs are gonna rise
Speaker 3: right on up, just like the old you know, rub
Speaker 3: a balloon on the carpet, put on your head and
Speaker 3: watch your hair go all over the place.
Speaker 1: Does that mean you should run for cover somewhere, preferably
Speaker 1: not under a big tree that's by itself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, unless those are just your spidy senses
Speaker 3: tingling a little bit, i'd probably, you know, move because
Speaker 3: it's definitely a sign that there's something electrically going on
Speaker 3: in the atmosphere, and you don't want to be around
Speaker 3: when those when those lightning strikes come down.
Speaker 1: Okay, a few people Metal and Lewis and Markshavaz, Metal
Speaker 1: and Lewis. Personal question asker want to know about volcanic
Speaker 1: lightning or wildfire smoke inducing lightning? Does that happen?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 3: What you have is during a fire, especially, is fire's
Speaker 3: burning and it's releasing a lot of energy through heat
Speaker 3: and moisture. So much energy and so much heat. And
Speaker 3: you see this more often on really really hot fires
Speaker 3: that are burning really really hot. We get something called pyroconvection,
Speaker 3: which is eventually that heat and that moisture starts to
Speaker 3: rise because hot air rises with the cooler air and
Speaker 3: kind of like a typical thunderstorm, as it arises, it
Speaker 3: starts to condense and it starts to form cumulus clouds
Speaker 3: or pyrocumulus clouds. And the crazy thing is that the
Speaker 3: updrafts of this hot air rising, the updrafts of these
Speaker 3: suckers can reach like up to one hundred miles per hour.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there's just there's so much going in there.
Speaker 3: So if the fire continuously pumping that heat and that
Speaker 3: moisture into these cumulus clouds, they keep growing and growing
Speaker 3: and growing, and you get more vertical movement until eventually
Speaker 3: pyrocumulanimous cloud is formed, and then you start to get
Speaker 3: kind of that charge the charge separation. You get the
Speaker 3: banging around of those those particles up there produced from
Speaker 3: the ash and from the smoke that allow the moisture
Speaker 3: to kind of condense on them, which then helps create
Speaker 3: the passing of charges. Like we talked about, you'll get
Speaker 3: lightning from that, or you can get lightning from that,
Speaker 3: and it's very similar kind of with volcano. It was
Speaker 3: because volcanoes so much heat and they're releasing all that
Speaker 3: gas and the ash material creating these really dense smoke plumes. Ooh,
Speaker 3: so it's really cool. Yeah, pictures of volcanic lightning are
Speaker 3: actually really sick. I don't know if you or anybody
Speaker 3: out there listening has ever seen pictures of volcanic lightning
Speaker 3: if you haven't looked it up, because.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I looked it up and it's true. Volcanic lightning
Speaker 1: pictures are hella suite and they look like if a
Speaker 1: mountain had a midlife crisis and decided to become a
Speaker 1: heavy metal disco like smoke machine, strobe lights danger like
Speaker 1: if you looked through the plumes of ash, there has
Speaker 1: got to be a yetty in there doing a guitar solo.
Speaker 1: I have just a couple more questions from listeners because
Speaker 1: I know I'm just I literally we could go on
Speaker 1: for hours, okay. Elizabeth Edwards and Rachel and Maria Joora
Speaker 1: Vivillah Elizabeth Rachel, both first time question askers, wanted to
Speaker 1: know a little bit more about like what percentage of
Speaker 1: wildfires are caused by lightning strikes globally and also are
Speaker 1: these wildfires changing because of climate change? And should we
Speaker 1: be using more indigenous land management to kind of prevent
Speaker 1: the big burns.
Speaker 3: I've been waiting for a question like this, ha ha, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we know climate's going to come into it. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure exactly what the global statistics are.
Speaker 2: In the US. I know.
Speaker 3: Roughly eighty to ninety percent of fires are caused by
Speaker 3: humans and then the other percent caused by lightning, so
Speaker 3: ten to twenty percent. And we actually don't mind lightning
Speaker 3: cause fires unless they're during events such as the one
Speaker 3: that we just had here in California, or unless it's
Speaker 3: a fire itself producing some sort of lightning activity, because
Speaker 3: a lot of the light cause fires that happens tend
Speaker 3: to happen in remote areas where we're trying to get
Speaker 3: around to this. Okay, if it's happening in an area
Speaker 3: far off somewhere in the mountains, let it burn, let it,
Speaker 3: let it ravage the fuel and take over.
Speaker 1: So Chris says that lightning caused fires really become an
Speaker 1: issue when they're related to an event like the one
Speaker 1: we had recently here in California, where there were hundreds
Speaker 1: of them at once, which with new weather patterns and
Speaker 1: droughts and warmer, drier weather, may happen more often. Okay,
Speaker 1: questions I always ask at the end, what is your
Speaker 1: favorite thing about your work or about lightning, or what
Speaker 1: keeps you just gives you butterflies.
Speaker 3: I would have to say just the fascination of it
Speaker 3: and seeing how things are constantly changing and seeing how
Speaker 3: it's impacting society is a big motivational factor because we
Speaker 3: know what's at risk, we know what changes might be
Speaker 3: coming about, we know that they may not be good,
Speaker 3: and so we have a real opportunity to do something.
Speaker 3: We have a real opportunity to help an industry seek
Speaker 3: some sort of answers. Get out there and look at fire,
Speaker 3: tornadoes and fire a world. We get to see lightning
Speaker 3: storms shoot down from the sky. We get to go
Speaker 3: out there during some of these storm events, which I
Speaker 3: know told people you shouldn't do. It's those little bits
Speaker 3: in that field work that's extremely extremely exciting.
Speaker 2: Ugh.
Speaker 1: I mean, what is more exciting than something that is
Speaker 1: hotter than the sun? Seemingly random, but science can explain it.
Speaker 1: I mean that's like, what's more exciting than like bolts
Speaker 1: of electricity coming from the heavens?
Speaker 3: That's rat oh I know, right, yeah, it's super.
Speaker 1: Rat nom jeez, So ask lightning quick people, thundering questions,
Speaker 1: because otherwise the facts will always just be a kind
Speaker 1: of a little cloudy. Now to find out more about Chris.
Speaker 1: You can see the links in the show notes, also
Speaker 1: linked as aliward dot com slash Smologies, which has dozens
Speaker 1: more free kids Safe shorter episodes to blaze through. Thank
Speaker 1: you Mercedes Maitland of Mainland Audio and Zeke Rodriguez, Thomas
Speaker 1: and Jarrett Sleeper of mind Gem Media for editing those.
Speaker 1: And since we like to keep things kind of small
Speaker 1: around here, the rest of the credits are in the
Speaker 1: show notes. But before I go, I like to give
Speaker 1: just a small piece of advice, and this week it's
Speaker 1: that I had to skip a birthday party because I
Speaker 1: was really sick and that was not fun. But the
Speaker 1: good news is is that there's going to be another
Speaker 1: birthday party next year, plenty more of other people's birthday
Speaker 1: parties before that. But remember, you only get one body,
Speaker 1: so you gotta let it rest when the doctor tells
Speaker 1: you to, So don't worry.
Speaker 3: Healing.
Speaker 1: It's just part of living. And I got to do
Speaker 1: it too, Okay, I'll gotta go to it right now.
Speaker 1: Bye Bye.
Speaker 3: A Knowledge.
Speaker 1: Spology Alogy apology Boogie A Knowledge