Question

A lightning bolt transfers 6.0 coulombs of charge from a cloud to the ground in 2.0 x 10-3 second. what is the average current during this event?

Answer 1

The current is defined as the amount of charge transferred through a certain point in a certain time interval:
$I= \frac{Q}{\Delta t}$
where
I is the current
Q is the charge
$\Delta t$ is the time interval

For the lightning bolt in our problem, Q=6.0 C and $\Delta t= 2.0 \cdot 10^{-3}s$, so the average current during the event is
$I= \frac{Q}{\Delta t} = \frac{6.0 C}{2.0 \cdot 10^{-3} s}=3000 A$