An idiot's guide to thunder?

Question

After last night's spectacular thunder and lightening, can anyone explain IN SIMPLE TERMS PLEASE(!) what causes the light and the noise. So I can explain it to my 3 year old!

Answer 1

i used to say it was the clouds banging heads together that make the thunder noise and i said that the lightening was electric abit like mummy and daddy turning the lights on and off, and she was ok with that then.

Answer 2

The is a bit hard for a 3 year old but maybe you can understand it and put it in simpler terms.

Lightning is an electric current. In a thundercloud, many frozen raindrops bump into each other as they move around. After a while, the cloud fills up with electrical charges. ( you may leave this part out but for you to understand what you are explaining - the positive charges form at the top of the cloud and the negative ones form at the bottom. Since opposites attract, that causes a positive charge to build up on the ground beneath the cloud.) The charge coming up from things that stick up like trees, mountains, people, etc eventually connect with a charge reaching down from the clouds and - zap - lightning strikes!

Thunder is caused by lightning. When a lightning bolt travels from the cloud to the ground it actually opens up a little hole in the air.Once the light is gone the air collapses back in and creates a sound wave that we hear as thunder. The reason we see lightning before we hear thunder is because light travels faster than sound!

Answer 3

Lightning is a bright flash of electricity produced by a thunderstorm. All thunderstorms produce lightning and are very dangerous. If you hear the sound of thunder, then you are in danger from lightning. Lightning kills and injures more people each year than hurricanes or tornadoes; between 75 to 100

Lightning is an electric current. Within a thundercloud way up in the sky, many small bits of ice (frozen raindrops) bump into each other as they move around in the air. All of those collisions create an electric charge. After a while, the whole cloud fills up with electrical charges. The positive charges or protons form at the top of the cloud and the negative charges or electrons form at the bottom of the cloud. Since opposites attract, that causes a positive charge to build up on the ground beneath the cloud. The grounds electrical charge concentrates around anything that sticks up, such as mountains, people, or single trees. The charge coming up from these points eventually connects with a charge reaching down from the clouds and - zap - lightning strikes!

Thunder is caused by lightning. When a lightning bolt travels from the cloud to the ground it actually opens up a little hole in the air, called a channel. Once then light is gone the air collapses back in and creates a sound wave that we hear as thunder. The reason we see lightning before we hear thunder is because light travels faster than sound! is that enough.

Answer 4

During a storm, a lot of electricity builds up. It is a very strong current, and sometimes comes up out of the ground to the sky. That causes lightening. Lightening is very fast, so fast that it actually makes a hole in the air as it passes. Thunder is the sound of the air coming back together - and also accounts for the rolling sound.

I hope that is simple enough. The problem is, you have to understand something very well before you can explain it simply. Well done for not falling back on the legend of St. Peter's potatoes.

Answer 5

Lightning is produced in thunderstorms when liquid and ice particles above the freezing level collide, and build up large electrical fields in the clouds. Once these electric fields become large enough, a giant "spark" occurs between them, like static electricity, reducing the charge separation. The lightning spark can occur between clouds, between the cloud and air, or between the cloud and ground. As in the photo above, cloud-to-ground lightning usually occurs near the boundary between the updraft region (where the darkest) clouds are, and the downdraft/raining region (with the lighter, fuzzy appearance). Sometimes, however, the lightning bolt can come out of the side of the storm, and strike a location miles away, seemingly coming out of the clear blue sky. As long as a thunderstorm continues to produce lightning, you know that the storm still has active updrafts and is still producing precipitation. The temperature inside a lightning bolt can reach 50,000 degrees F, hotter than the surface of the sun. Objects that are struck by lightning can catch on fire, or show little or no evidence of burning at all

Answer 6

A bit difficult to explain the concept of electric charge in clouds to a 3 year old... hmmm...

Lightnings are like very big sparks (you might want to show the child the igniter spark on a gas cooker/hob to explain what a spark is). When the air is warm and wet, and other conditions are right, large electric current flows through the air from the clouds to the earth. This is what you see as lighting.

When lightning strikes, it heats up the air it goes through so fast and so much that the air expands very rapidly. As soon as the air expands, air from nearby that's not heated up so much rushes. This creates a loud bang, like when a balloon bursts only much much louder. This is what you hear as thunder.

Answer 7

up in the sky where you can't see it, are clouds called Thunderclouds.
These small frozen raindrops are moving (floating around in the air) and they keep bumping into each other. This creates an electrical charge - like when you rub your feet across the carept.
This is what causes the lightning and it goes for the things that are closest first - like mountains, high builidngs ect.
When the lighning travels through the sky - to reach the earth- it makes a hole in the sky - like tearing a piece of paper - only lounder. That's the thunder.
the lightenting is 6 times as hot as the sun! And scinece says that the sun is so hot that no one could ever touch it.

Answer 8

ive got a three year old and I told her that the thunder is clouds bumping into each other, and the lightening is the sun joining in the fun with the clouds cos the sun didnt want to be left out.

She accepted that explnation, I didnt see any point in trying to explain about the elctricity side of things, she is too young to concentrate for too long and will only lose interes in what im saying and wander off anyway!

Answer 9

It is far too early for a 3-year-old kid to be bothered with a scientific explanation of such natural phenomena. And, as implied in the question itself, it is perhaps idiotic too to think of doing so! Maybe, consider some colourful pictures of thunder and lightning and similar weather-related issues so that the child can look at them and have some fun - at the same time the child can recognise colours!

Answer 10

the light is caused by lightning - which is a discharge of built up electricity (generated by friction) from the cloud to the ground. the thunder is in turn caused by the lightning - as the lightning travels through the air it heats it up. because of this the air expands, making a loud noise

i hope that's simple enough for a 3 year old to understand :)
if not, post as such in additional details

Answer 11

Lightning:

Lightning may not seem much like static electricity, but it's actually very similar. Both are sparks of electricity created through the attraction of unlike charges. The difference is that static electricity creates a small spark, while lightning is a huge spark of electricity.

In storm clouds, tiny particles in the cloud move around picking up positive or negative energy charges, like when shoes scuff a rug. The positive charged particles stay light, and rise to the top of the cloud. The negative charged particles get heavier, and collect at the bottom of the cloud.
As more particles become charged, they divide into opposing groups in the cloud. When the power of attraction between them gets too great, the particles discharge their energy at each other, completing a path for electricity to travel through the air. We call this flow of electricity lightning.

It's the negative charges in the bottom of the cloud that cause lightning to strike the ground. When the negatively charged particles group together, they begin to seek out positive charges from the ground below. The excess electrons create a channel of charged air called a leader that reaches down to the ground below. The leaders attract other charged ground-based channels called streamers.

When the stepped leader from the cloud meets a returning streamer from the ground, the path is ready. An electrical current called the return stroke, travels back up the path. This return stroke releases tremendous energy, bright light and thunder.

The typical stroke can last only 30 milliseconds, so four to five strokes may happen in the blink of an eye. Despite the old saying, lightning does strike the same place twice.

To review, lightning is created by the attraction between opposite charges, the same force that creates static electricity. But lightning uses huge opposite charges to produce an electrical current that's nothing like what you'd get from static electricity.

Thunder:

The flash of a lightning strike and resulting thunder occur at roughly the same time. But light travels at 186,000 miles in a second, almost a million times the speed of sound. Sound travels at the slower speed of one-fifth of a mile in the same time. So the flash of lightning is seen before thunder is heard. By counting the seconds between the flash and the thunder and dividing by 5, you can estimate your distance from the strike (in miles). But why does lightning cause thunder at the same time it strikes?

Lightning causes thunder because a strike of lightning is incredibly hot. A typical bolt of lightning can immediately heat the air to between 15,000 to 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's hotter than the surface of the sun!
A lightning strike can heat the air in a fraction of a second. When air is heated that quickly, it expands violently and then contracts, like an explosion that happens in the blink of an eye. It's that explosion of air that creates sound waves, which we hear and call thunder.

When lightning strikes very close by, we hear the thunder as a loud and short bang. We hear thunder from far away as a long, low rumble.

Lightning always produces thunder. When you see lightning but don't hear any thunder, the lightning is too far away from you for the sound waves to reach you.

Light and sound will always move at different speeds. And lightning will always produce thunder because of a strike's high temperature. So no matter what, you will always see a flash of lightning before you hear thunder.