Why does thunder always follow lightning during a thunderstorm?

Answer 1

Because light travels faster than sound and because the thunder is the result of the rapid collapse of the air around the lightning bolt the thunder comes later. AS a result, thunder is always later than the lightning.

Answer 2

Lightning is the release of a high energy electrical charge from the top, positive charged, to the bottom, negative charged, cloud.

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.

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.
...jj

Answer 3

Lightning is a discharge of static electricity from a thunderstorm. During the life of a thunderstorm electrical change separations build up in the clouds--positive charges migrate to the top of the clouds, negative to the bottom. The negative charge at the bottom of the cloud forces negative charges in the ground to migrate away from the storm leaving a net positive charge to the ground below the clouds. When these static charges become too great lightning occurs momentarily neutralizing the charges. The lightening bolt goes from ground to cloud ... negative to positive. Sometimes, you only hear the thunder because the lightening is too far away.

Because the lightning bolt is so hot (15,000-60,000 F) the air around it becomes quickly heated and then cooled when the flash is over. This heating and cooling creates a shock wave in the air which we hear as thunder. (Even the little sparks in this activity will create shock waves responsible for the crackling heard during discharge.) Read the link below and try the experiment.

It is true that you can determine the distance to a lightning bolt by measuring the time delay between the flash and the thunder (5 seconds equals 1 mile).

Answer 4

Hello. During a Thunderunder storm , the nature of science is hard at work . In the specific area you asked about , what you are hearing is a delayed sound wave. When lightning flashes across th sky , it does so at such a great speed that the sound barrier is broken . The same as a super sonic jet only cooler. As with the jet , when the lightning breaks the sound barrier it emits a Huge "pop" or as is sometimes called " A sonic Boom ". Because sound travels at a slower rate of speed than does light , you hear the boom or thunder after you see the lightning. As a child we used to try and predict the distance to the coming storm. We would begin counting , " One Mississippi , Two Mississippi , Three Mississippi...etc. We were supposed to ascertain the amount of time before the storm was above us but for the life of me ...I can't remember the equation . Anyway , hope that helps.

Answer 5

Thunder is the sound of lightening, only it takes longer to travel as compared to lightning because light travels faster than sound !!

Technical facts are :--

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.

Answer 6

Thunder always follows lightning because the lightning bolt takes up space. The thunder is the movement of air rushing outward from where the lightning is causing a loud boom. It's just slower since sound travels slower than light and pretty much the same as clapping your hands. You don't hear the hands hitting together. You hear the rush of air coming from between them.

Answer 7

It's the lightning that creates the thunder, and they both occur at the same place. And since light travels faster than sound does, the thunder sound doesn't get to you as soon as the light from the lightning.

Answer 8

Lightning heats up the air where the bolt occurs. The air becomes extremely hot. Hot air is less dense than cold air. Since the difference between the hot air and the cold air is so great the cold air rushes in to fill the less dense air (nature abhors a vacuum). The speed at which the air rushes in exceeds the sound barrier. As the rushing air breaks the speed of sound it causes a sonic boom. Thus, thunder always happens after lightning. If you see lightning but don't here it then the sound waves dissipate before reaching your location because of the great distance between you and the thunderstorm.

Answer 9

The simple explanation to this is that of a 100m dash involving some athletes. If we assume all start at the same time and move at the same speed, then they will definitely arrive the end point at the same time. However this is not the case in reality, because their rates of movement as a reflection of their individual speeds vary, as such somebody comes 1st in such a race.

The same phenomenon applies here between the lightning and the sound. The speeds of these two media differs. The thunder lighning (of course a light) travels at the speed of light - 299,792,458 (approx. 300, 000, 000 m/s) while the thunder clap is a sound and travels at the speed of sound - 340.29m/s. So if both were to begin the race at the same time, it is absolutely sure that light will win the race because light will move faster and cover more grounds than sound. As such you always see the light before you hear the sound.

So many examples abound. In the case of a gun shot, you'll see the light that comes from the shot before hearing the sound of the gun shot. Also, in the case of your fire crackers, bomb explosions, banger knock-outs and other forms of explosions involving both light & sound. Similarly, you notice same phenomenon in your aircrafts, where you see the aircrafts before hearing their sounds.

Answer 10

Thunder is the sound that lightning makes and Light travels faster then sound. That is why during the storm the closer the sound of thunder is to the lightning the closer the storm is to you. I do hope that helped.