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Thunder is the sound caused by lightning. Depending upon the distance from and nature of the lightning, it can range from a long, low rumble to a sudden, loud crack. The sudden increase in temperature and hence pressure caused by the lightning produces rapid expansion of the air in the path of a lightning bolt.
Is lightning a sound or light?
Thunder and lightning all occur due to the release of energy – thunder is a soundwave, and lightning is the emission of electromagnetic energy. The reason we see a flash of lightning before hearing thunder is because light travels faster than sound.
Does lightning create sound?
This rapid expansion and contraction creates the sound wave that we hear as thunder. Although a lightning discharge usually strikes just one spot on the ground, it travels many miles through the air. The loud boom that you sometimes hear is created by the main lightning channel as it reaches the ground.
What does thunder and lightning sound like?
With nearby lightning strikes the thunder will sound like a loud bang, crack or snap and its duration will be very short. As the shock wave propagates away from the strike center, it stretches, diminishes, and becomes elongated. Sound waves move faster in warm air than they do in cool air.
Is sound faster than lightning?
Lightning heats the air and causes shock waves. But you see lightning before you hear thunder because light, which travels a million times faster than sound, arrives almost instantly. Sound, on the other hand, takes about five seconds to travel one mile.
Is light faster than lightning?
Comparing it with the average lightning speed, Light is ~ 675.45 times faster.
How is lightning made?
Lightning is an electrical discharge caused by imbalances between storm clouds and the ground, or within the clouds themselves. Most lightning occurs within the clouds. This heat causes surrounding air to rapidly expand and vibrate, which creates the pealing thunder we hear a short time after seeing a lightning flash.
Why thunder is so loud?
Why is thunder so loud? It’s because the amount of electrical energy that flows from the cloud to the ground is so enormous: it’s like a very big waterfall of electricity. The louder the sound that you hear, the closer you are to the lightning. Light travels through air much faster than sound.
What does it sound like when lightning hits your house?
You will hear a loud and powerful “boom” like you would with most lightning strikes, but this one will be memorable and will shake your home. If your house or yard was hit, there may be a continuous buzzing or hissing sound following the strike.
What does it sound like when lightning hits something?
The air around the lightning bolt expands faster than the speed of sound, which creates a shock wave of thunder. When you’re this close to the bolt, though, it sounds more like a bullet from a gun. These channels of negatively charged air are where the lightning travels from cloud to ground.
What lightning smells like?
“It smelled like something inorganic burning, like wires or plastic.” Others have compared the odor to chlorine, cleaning supplies or, unsurprisingly, electrical sparks. Odds are, you’ve smelled lightning-produced ozone before. You know that clean, crisp smell ahead of a springtime rain? That’s it.
Is a lightning strike loud?
When lightning strikes close, thunder has a loud clap or snapping sound. The rumbling we hear is the sound of thunder reaching us at different times from the sound produced along its length. People have experienced injury and property damage from the sound of thunder at close range.
Is lightning hotter than the sun?
In fact, lightning can heat the air it passes through to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5 times hotter than the surface of the sun). When lightning strikes a tree, the heat vaporizes any water in its path possibly causing the tree to explode or a strip of bark to be blown off.
Is lightning slower than light?
The lightning itself, a positive charge descending from the source and joining a negatively charged step- leader emerging from the ground, travels far slower than the speed of light. But the light produced by lightning travels, obviously, at the speed of light.
Which comes first lightning or thunder?
If we are watching the sky, we see the lightning before we hear the thunder. That is because light travels much faster than sound waves. We can estimate the distance of the lightning by counting how many seconds it takes until we hear the thunder.
Are lasers faster than lightning?
Yes. Laser beams are EM radiation that travel at the speed of light. The progressive breakdown of the air the precedes a lightning strike is much slower thewn the speed of light..
What is light made of?
Light is made of particles called photons, bundles of the electromagnetic field that carry a specific amount of energy. With sufficiently sensitive experiments, you can count photons or even perform measurements on a single one.
Which is more powerful fire or lightning?
Wildfires in particular tend to be much more devastating than a lightning storm, but a lightning storm may only last a few hours, whereas wildfires can burn for months. So, if you compare, say, a single strike of lightning to a single lick of flame, obviously the lightning is far more powerful.
What color is lightning?
The distinctive blue-white color of lightning is caused by light emitted as the electrons drop back to their original energy states. Seen from above, lightning storms also produce less well-known emissions of blue or red light above the clouds, known as jets and sprites.
What are the 3 types of lightning?
There are three common types of lightning: cloud to ground, cloud to cloud and cloud to air. Cloud to ground lightning is the most dangerous. The ground is mainly consisted of positively charged particles while the bottom of violent storm clouds have negative charged particles.
