[ELI5] Why does rain sometimes have thunder / lightning, and sometimes it doesn’t?

Question

[ELI5] Why does rain sometimes have thunder / lightning, and sometimes it doesn’t?

In: 3

Answer 1

First, you need ice phase hydrometeors to get lightning. If cloud tops were short enough so that there was no ice in the cloud, you will not get lightning. Second, even if you do get ice phase particles, they need to interact to build up charge separation.