lightning

On April 10, 1996, an automated anemometer on Barrow Island off the northwest coast of Australia measured a three-second wind gust of 408 km/h (253.5 mph) during Tropical Cyclone Olivia — the highest surface wind speed ever officially recorded on Earth. Tornadoes have exceeded even that. A hailstone in South Dakota weighed 878 g (1.94 lb). A Venezuelan lake generates up to 1,600 lightning bolts per hour, every night, for 300 nights per year. These records are not flukes. Each one follows from specific, explainable atmospheric physics.

How thunderclouds build billions of volts, why lightning is hotter than the Sun's surface, and the rare sprites flashing above storms.