???
Saw a documentary on Discovery channel where one scientist has the view (with facts) that storm and lightning activity goes hand in hand with solar winds from the sun bombarding our atmosphere which actually influences lightning activity. The theory is that with solar winds bombarding the ozone layer there is actually 'holes' within our atmosphere that fluctuate at certain times and allows the sun's solar winds to penetrate the earth, thus causing a chain reaction within developing storm systems to produce lightning. It seems that it's not just the meterological phenomena that we all know of that produces lightning discharges, but it is in direct corrorlation with soalr winds.
I suppose a good example is that everyone knew lightning discharges from the base of a cloud, but now there's proof of lightning occurring above the cloud of up to 30km into space - so is the theory right that the sun has a much greater affect on storms than we first thought?