What causes lightning and thunder?

This was suggested by a co-worker of mine and since I did tornadoes I thought it could be fun to explore some more interesting weather.

Lightning -

According to the electrostatic induction hypothesis, charges are driven apart resulting in lightning. As strong updraft winds carry water through clouds it super cools the molecules to between -10 degrees celsius and - 20 degrees celsius. As this water collides with ice crystals in the clouds it creates a water-ice micture called graupel. The collisions causea slight positive charge to transfer to the ice crystals and a slight negative charge to transfer to the graupel. Ice crystals are lighter then graupel so the wind blows them to the top of the cloud. This causes the top of the cloud to be positively charged while the bottom is negativeluy charged by the graupel. Charge seperation and accumulation continues until the electical potential is so great that is results in lightning.

Thunder -

Thunder is simply a shock wave caused by lightning. Lightning heats up the air to aproximately 50,000 degrees farenheit. This rapid heating causes the air to expand at speeds faster then the sound can travel through surrounding cooler air, resulting in a shockwave not unlike those caused by explosions.

How do tornadoes form?

I'm typing this while my mom makes a failing attempt to convince my brother, dad and myself that we're going to get killed by a giant tornado unless we all pile into the basement with her and our dog. I've lived on Long Island my whole life and we've never had a tornado warning before this that I can remember. I am personally not too concerned which is why I'm not in the basement with my mom. Anyway all this got me thinking, how do they form?

A tornado is a column of air that is rotating very quickly, this column extends from a cloud (usually a thunderstorm cloud) to the ground. Most tornados have winds under 100 mph but some can be over 250 mph.

It takes several conditions to form not only a tornado but the thunderstorm clouds they form from. A lot of low level moisture is required and a catalyst that pushes that moisture up into the air, usually this catalyst is something like cold winds. This moisture rising and getting saturated as it rises results in a very tall distinctly shaped cloud when the atmosphere is unstable.

In order for the tornado to form there needs to be a strong, low, wind that rotates horizontally to the ground. The rising air in the thunderstorm cloud will pick up the horizontal wind, rotating it from horizontal to vertical creating the column of air from the cloud to the ground known as a tornado.

Unstable Atmosphere - An unstable atmosphere is one where the temperature decreases rapidly with hight.

why is the sky and ocean blue?

I recently went on a 9 day cruise to the Caribbean. Nine days is a long time to be surrounded by water. My family and I spent a lot of time on the back of the boat watching the propellers churn up beautiful pale blue water and left me thinking about why it's blue.  I also decided to find out why the sky is blue because well... why not? 

Lets start with the ocean - 

The ocean is blue because the water absorbs the colors in the red end of the light spectrum. Since everything else is absorbed all we see is blue. 

*The ocean can also appear green or red as light bounces off of floating sediment in the water. 

The sky -

Blue sky is the result of rayleigh scattering. As light passes through the atmosphere, longer wave lengths pass through unaffected. Shorter wave lengths are absorbed by gas molecules and the light is radiated in all directions. Since this rayleigh scattering is happening all over the sky, what you see is a blue sky. 

What happens to a human body in a vacuum?

The whole concept for this blog all started on a forum in a thread about the original moon landing. I realized that I have no true understanding of how it happened and that bothered me a lot. It made me feel pretty dumb and simple for not understanding the science behind the technology that humans have used to explore space. I've been looking for a good book about the technology but I haven't found one yet. It doesn't have to be simple or anything like that, I love doing research, I'll just have to keep looking.

So my first question - what happens to a human body in a vacuum. 

A human in a vacuum will lose consciousness after a few seconds and die of hypoxia within a few minutes. Blood and other bodily fluids will boil (a condition known as ebullism) the body may swell up to two times it's normal size. Rapid evaporative cooling of the skin will create frost, particularly in the mouth. 

Hypoxia - a condition where the body (generalized hypoxia) or a region of the body (tissue hypoxia) is deprived of adequate oxygen.

Ebullism - The formation of gas bubbles in bodily fluids due to reduced environmental pressure.

Well this is new

My name is Jen and there are a lot of things in this world that I don't understand yet. A little about myself - I am currently a sophomore at the University At Buffalo and my intended major is biomedical studies, I intend to go into a career in medicine. I like video games, I'm an audiophile and I love science, I'm also a photographer when I have the time. I decided to make this blog because there are a lot of things I feel like I should know about that I just never bothered to learn. Little things like why light bulbs work, what happens when you put a person in a vacuum, why is the sky blue? I've decided to start carrying around a notebook and writing down questions as they come to me and answering them as I find the time. Since I'm always on the computer I thought it would be a good idea to also put it online. 

If you found this randomly I hope you find what you're looking for!