How is Lightning formed and wats is its Voltage range and how is it related with thunder?

Answer 1

Thunder is the sound you hear, lightning is the visual effect you see. Peak voltage could be 1 to 10 Billion volts. Dieletric constant for air is around 10,000 volts/ meter, so minimum voltage is in this range.

Answer 2

Firstly, clouds in the air get charged by solar winds from the sun. These charges can be classified as negative and positive charges. The positive charges will move to the top of the cloud and the negative ones will move to the bottom. These negative charges will 'pull' the positive charges in the ground to the surface of the ground, to under the cloud. These negative and positive charges have this 'compulsion' to be together. When this compulsion becomes irresistable, an electric discharge occurs to 'connect' these charges, which is what we call 'lightning'. Lightning can be from cloud to ground, cloud to cloud, and between the positive and negative charges within the cloud itself. Thunder occurs because of the heating and expansion of the air around lightning. This results in a noise, which is thunder. The power from lightning is enough to light a 100 watt light bulb for 2 months.

Answer 3

the friction of billions of small air drops in clouds ends up accumulating huge amounts of static electricity. When the difference in potential becomes over 10'000 volts per cm, this is enough to ionize the air (ie rip electrons from atoms) and you have a lightning. And clearly at 10'000 volts per cm that's 1 million volts per meter so it adds up pretty quickly.

the total energy in a ligthning is about 250 to 3'000 kilowatt-hours, so even the most powerful lightnings contain only about as much energy, as the output of a nuclear power plant for 10 seconds.

the discharge is what creates the vibrations in the air, which we perceive as thunder. Thunder being sound it travels at the normal speed of sound through air (about 360 meters / second), while the light from the lightning travels at 300'000 kilometers per second.

So the light basically reaches you instantly, while the thunder will take a couple seconds, and if you count the seconds and multiply by 360 you get the distance in meters (or multiply by 1200 you get the distance in feet, or multiply by 400 you get the distance in yards)

Hope this helps