# Ground to air or Air to ground?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ground-to-air-or-air-to-ground/164324>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 26, 2003, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ground-to-air-or-air-to-ground/164324 "2003-03-26T17:03:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ground-to-air-or-air-to-ground/164324/1 "2003-03-26T17:03:47Z")

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Does lightning come from the clouds to hit something on the ground, or do the clouds ‘attract’ a point in the ground and the lightning starts from there?

I was led to believe that lightning started from the ground and then reached the clouds-is this true?

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ground-to-air-or-air-to-ground/164324/2 "2003-03-26T18:12:33Z")

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It happens both ways.

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**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ground-to-air-or-air-to-ground/164324/3 "2003-03-26T20:49:43Z")

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There’s a good explaination about 2/3 of the way down this page [http://thunder.msfc.nasa.gov/primer/primer2.html](http://thunder.msfc.nasa.gov/primer/primer2.html)