The lightning flash heats the air around it so quickly that the air expands very fast. When you heat something, it gets bigger – it expands. The air around the lightning flash expands so fast that it makes a shock wave in the air. That shock wave is the thunder that you hear.
What is a thunder in physics?
Thunder is created when lightning passes through the air. The lightning discharge heats the air rapidly and causes it to expand. The temperature of the air in the lightning channel may reach as high as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.
What is thunder in science terms?
Well, lightning causes thunder. Lightning is a discharge of electricity. A single stroke of lightning can heat the air around it to 30,000°C (54,000°F)! This extreme heating causes the air to expand explosively fast. The expansion creates a shock wave that turns into a booming sound wave, known as thunder.
What causes thunder in physics?
Answer. Thunder is caused by the rapid expansion of the air surrounding the path of a lightning bolt.
Why is there thunder but no lightning?
No, it is not possible to have thunder without lightning. Thunder starts as a shockwave from the explosively expanding lightning channel when a large current causes rapid heating. However, it is possible that you might see lightning and not hear the thunder because it was too far away.
What sound is thunder?
The shock wave is greatly elongated. To the listener, it is the combination of the millions of shock waves that gives thunder the continuous booming/rumbling sound we hear.
Why is thunder 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.
How do you explain thunder to a 3 year old?
As the lightning shoots through the air, it heats that air up because lightning is hotter than the sun. When air gets that hot, that fast, it explodes, which is why you hear thunder after you see lightning. Why is the thunder always after the lightning? Because thunder is a sound, and sound is a slow poke.
How loud is a thunder?
A clap of thunder typically registers at about 120 dB in close proximity to the ground stroke. This is 10 times louder than a garbage truck or pneumatic jackhammer drill.
What type of word is thunder?
As detailed above, ‘thunder’ can be a noun or a verb. Noun usage: Thunder is preceded by lightning.
How does a thunder look like?
What creates thunder and lightning?
When the attraction becomes too strong, the positive and negative charges come together, or discharge, to balance the difference in a flash of lightning (sometimes known as a lightning strike or lightning bolt). The rapid expansion and heating of air caused by lightning produces the accompanying loud clap of thunder.
Is thunder the sound of lightning?
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.
What comes first thunder lightning or rain?
In nature, a lightning flash and the associated thunder occur at almost the same time in a thunderstorm. A person on the ground sees the lightning flash before hearing the thunder because light at a speed of around 300,000,000 meters per second travels much faster than sound which moves at 340 meters per second.
Is thunder stronger than fire?
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 are the 7 elements of the world?
About the book Seven Elements vividly describes how iron, carbon, gold, silver, uranium, titanium and silicon have shaped the world around us – for good and for bad.
What are the 8 elements of nature?
They are used to simplify the complexity of nature and matter by ancient people. Complete answer: The twelve elements of nature are Earth, Water, Wind, Fire, Thunder, Ice, Force, Time, Flower, Shadow, Light and Moon. Each of these elements are simplified terms for higher and complex substances.
Can it rain without thunder?
Rain and snow without thunder and lighting is perfectly normal in many parts of the world. You don’t need large contrasts in weather to produce rain or snow. To get lightning, you need convective clouds (cumulonimbus) with strong vertical air currents.
What is lightning without thunder called?
Weather.gov > Safety > Heat Lightning. The term heat lightning is commonly used to describe lightning from a distant thunderstorm just too far away to see the actual cloud-to-ground flash or to hear the accompanying thunder.
How far can you hear thunder?
Thunder can be heard up to 25 miles away, and lightning strikes have been documented to occur as far as 25 miles from thunderstorms – known as a “bolt from the blue.” So if you can hear thunder, you’re close enough to be hit by lightning, and sheltering indoors or in an enclosed car is your safest bet.
What are the different types of thunder?
A clap is the sound of thunder when the lightning channel is perpendicular to the observer’s line of sight. A rumble is the sound of thunder when the lightning channel is roughly parallel to the observer’s line of sight. An example of this is when lightning follows a path from one side of the cloud to another.
Is thunder a pressure wave?
However, before thunder exists, there is a pressure blast wave. This pressure blast wave is caused by the superheating of the air around the lightning channel, which travels at supersonic speeds. It is this supersonic blast wave which decays, within meters, and transforms into thunder.
What creates lightning?
In the early stages of development, air acts as an insulator between the positive and negative charges in the cloud and between the cloud and the ground. When the opposite charges build up enough, this insulating capacity of the air breaks down and there is a rapid discharge of electricity that we know as lightning.
Why does thunder last so long?
Thunder lasts longer than lightning due to the time it takes for the sound to travel from different parts of the lightning channel.
Why is lightning purple?
Purple or lilac-tinted lightning bolt is often caused by high atmospheric humidity; which means the thunderstorm is accompanied by high-precipitation. Yellow lightning is uncommon; however, they tend to be cooler than the blue, lilac and white. They’re caused to due to a high concentration of dust in the air.