How do you judge the distance of lightning?

Question

What is an accurate way that I can judge the distance of lightning by counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder? What is the accurate formula?

Answer 1

You can determine the distance lightning is from you to some degree of accuracy by counting the time between lightning seen and thunder heard (assuming the thunder is unique to that lightning stroke). The reason it works is that light moves almost instantaneously from the lightning to your eye (at the speed of light which for most distances is in microseconds) while the thunder moves at the speed of sound (around 770 mph). It takes about five seconds for sound to travel a mile. Thus, counting the seconds from the time you see the lightning until hear the thunder and dividing by five will give you the distance of the bolt in miles (divide by 3 for distance in kilometres).

Answer 2

As soon as you see the lighting flash, start counting. Stop when you hear the thunder from that lightning flash. Take that number and divide by 5...that's approximately how many miles away the lightning struck. It works because light (seeing the lightning flash) travels about five times as fast as sound (from the thunder).

Answer 3

go out to the fields when it rains. prefer the area with most number of lightning. count the seconds after the lightning. and you know the speed of the light and sound. by that way u can get the distance... if the lightning and the thunder comes together,,,,,,,,,thank God..... no more such questions...because you are no more

Answer 4

in case you think of thats a delusion, circulate watch a baseball interest. observe once you spot the batter swing, you dont hear the crack of the bat until eventually afterwards. comparable theory. Lightning flashes, igniting a bolt of air to 1000's of tiers, sending out a shockwave. you spot the flash (gentle travels virtually straight away at that distance), however the shockwave is in simple terms going seven-hundred mph. So, you hear it afterwards. Ever had lightning flash precise above you? Thats while its so close there isn't any postpone -- the crashing sound is very virtually precisely while the flash occurs. no longer a delusion, in simple terms common physics.

Answer 5

The general rule is 1 Second= 1 mile.Thus if 5 seconds between lightning and thunder clap it is 5 miles away.

Answer 6

count 1001 + 1002 + 1003 and the 3 for example is the distance in miles both away and up. It could be 2 miles away and a mile up (actually it would be the square root of 8 miles away). That's the difference in the speed of light and the speed of sound. If you don't have time to count, seek cover.

Answer 7

Generally, sound travels at 330 m/s. and Light travels 30,000,000 m/s, so we see it almost instantanous.
The you see lightning, start counting. For every three seconds, it has travelled 1 km. So if you counted to 7, it is 2 1/3 km away.
For miles, count to 5 for each mile. So if you counted to 7, it is 1 2/5 miles away.

Answer 8

i don't know of an accurate formula... but i think it's one second per mile... roughly the speed of sound. If you see lightning and hear the thunder 5 seconds later, the lightning was 5 miles away.

Answer 9

I count 7 seconds per mile for the sound after the flash.

However this depends on altitude, temperature, barametric pressure and winds and so can't be too accurate (plus, I just count 1 onethousand, 2 onethousand).

Check the speed of sound in your neighborhood!

Answer 10

When you see the strike count 1 second 1, 1 second 2, 1 second 3, 1 second 4, etc. Until you here the thunder. Each count equals 1 mile from you. Simple huh...