Like a Bolt from Above

Lightning scientists begin to solve electric mysteries

SOCORRO, N.M. — Ten thousand feet high in the New Mexico mountains, Jake Trueblood is getting ready to fire rockets into a thunderstorm.

In this lightning flash that researchers generated over Camp Blanding, Fla., luminous stroke sequences are blown to the left of the vertical wire that triggered the flash. D. Hill/Univ. of Florida
At a mountaintop lightning laboratory in New Mexico, Jake Trueblood preps rockets to trigger lightning flashes. A. Witze
SPARK FROM ABOVE Lightning flashes most commonly discharge within clouds, but people on the ground tend to care most about the less common but more dangerous cloud-to-ground flashes.