How to Record Lightning Strikes

Met Office operates a lightning location system that uses this property. Lightning is an electrical discharge through our atmosphere. It produces a very strong electrical current of the order of thousands of amps. That heats up the air around it which causes an audible sound wave to propagate outwards. And finally, because there's a large electrical current flowing downwards, that actually generates a very broad band radio transmission and can be detected at various parts of the spectrum.