Which goes first? Lightening or thunder?

Question

I never seem to get this straight, and I've heard two ways of saying. In a traditional Chinese folktale, the lightening is the wife, while the thunder is the husband. They are constantly watching over the people in the world to see if there's anyone who ill treats her/his parents. The wife uses the "mirror" which is the ligtening for the husband to see clearly, and then the husband throws the weapon "thunder" to kill that person. According to this folktale, lightening goes before thunder. Is it correct? Help needed to clear up my muddled mind. Thanks.

Answer 1

Lightening and thunder form at the same time. However if you are a distance away, lightening is seen first and thunder is heard later. The reason is simple. The flash of lightening travels at 186000 miles a second. Thunder travels at the speed of sound which is roughly 1000 feet a second.

Answer 2

Let's talk about explosions. When a firecracker or a missile explodes, it makes a loud sound. Any explosion creates a lot of gas when it detonates. For example, trinitro-toluene (TNT) has three nitro (-NO3) groups attached to a toluene ring. When it explodes, these groups are rapidly converted to nitrogen gas. This gas then rapidly expands and creates a shock wave of sorts. This is what gives TNT it's destructive capability.
In the process, some of the energy from the expanding gas cloud is converted to sound energy, hence the boom.

How does this relate to lightning? Well, the lightning bolt, needless to say, has a lot of energy. In the process of arcing down to earth, an expanding gas cloud is created. Just like explosives, some of that energy is converted to sound waves. Therefore, the lightning strike and the thunder clap roughly coincide (there would be a small difference as the clap would start near the clouds). However, unless you are standing right where the lightning is going to strike (this is not recommended), then you will not observe them in coincidence. Since the light from the strike will travel faster than the sound from the clap, you should see it before you hear it.

Answer 3

Lightening is a positive to negative electrical charge from a cloud to the ground or cloud to cloud. Lightening heats the surrounding air to 50,000 degrees. The massive displacement of air creates the loud thunder sound. Since light travels faster than sound, we see the lightening first, then the thunder follows. That is why the louder the thunder, the closer the lightening.

Answer 4

Lightening happens 1st and thunder always follows.. Think of it this way.. Light travels much faster than sound does.. Thunder is actually the sound that the lightning makes but you don't hear it until after the flash has disappeared because of the variations in travel speed. Hope this helps to answer your question..

Answer 5

Lightening is first, thunder follows, which is why that stupid country song makes no sense "every time I hear the thunder, I turn around before the lightening strikes"

When lightening occures, it superheats the air it travels through, causing the air to rapidly expand and collide with the cooler air.

There is typically a noticable delay between the two because sound takes much longer to travel through air.

Answer 6

Lightning goes before thunder. The electrons that travel between the earth and sky to create the electrical discharge (lightning) which causes a superheating of the air around the bolt. IT is that superheating which causes a reverberation in the air, which we hear as thunder.

Another way to think about it is - without the energy (from lightning), there would be nothing to produce noise (or, thunder).

Answer 7

Lightening. Thunder is the sound made by lightening. Since light travels faster than sound, you see the flash before you hear the sound. The closer the lightening stikes, the sooner you hear the thunder. I think the rule is, you count the seconds after the flash til you hear the thunder. # of seconds between = miles away that the lightening struck

Answer 8

Lightning goes first. Matter of fact, without the lightning, you wouldn't have thunder. When things heat up, they expand. The lightning bolt heats up the air molecules so hot and fast, they expand away from each other very quickly. When the bolt goes away (in a split second), the molecules cool very quickly and slam back into each other. This quick and vigorous slam is what creates thunder.

Answer 9

Thunder is the product of lightning. You can actually tell the distance of a lightening strike by counting the seconds from lightning strike to thunder. Every 4.7 sec. for every mile.

Answer 10

it is a natural thing that God has created, it has nothing to do with what Chinese folktales says, Lightening comes first, before thunder. God made it that way