How many seconds are inbetween the flash and sound of lightning?

Question

I was gonna be a nerd and figure it using formulas and conversions.....with the speed of light (3.0 x 10^8 m/s) and sound (343 m/s), but I thought i would seek out other storm lovers like myself.

Answer 1

About a second for every 1000 yards you are away from the storm

Answer 2

You count selection between the lightning and the thunder, no longer between 2 lightnings. it is by technique of the fact mild travels swifter than sound. i think of you in addition to mght ought to multiply the seconds by potential of 7 or something like that to get the miles, i'm unsure. All i comprehend is the 1st 2 scentences. Edit: ok it is 5. And something is incorrect right here because of the fact no solutions confirmed up once I hit the 'answer question' button and now there are ones that say better than 2 hours in the past.

Answer 3

The speed of light is enough that it is practically instantaneous.

So. Using 343 m/s, 5km in 3.1 miles, and 1000 m in a km, you can calculate that it is 4.7 seconds per mile (roughly 5 works just fine).

Answer 4

It depends on which one is relative to what.

What I mean is how many seconds between the flash of lightening and the sound of thunder with respect to each other is zero since it's an instantaneous reaction.

If you asking how many seconds between a flash of lightening and thunder with respect to someone watching it, then it is dependent on distance from the event.

The further away your are, the time between lightening and thunder will be greater since light travels faster than sound so in that case, its dependent on distance.

Think about it, if instead you were up in the cloud rather on the road, you would see and hear them both instantaneously hence time would be virtually zero.

Answer 5

Roughly 5 seconds per mile

Answer 6

Assuming the light reaches you instantly (t=0) and distance x is travelled.

time for sound = x/343 s

Answer 7

assuming sound travels 300 m per sec.
light travels 300 million m pre sec
x is distance frm u.

time = distance / velocity;

time diff = time of sound - time 0f light

time diff = x / (3 * 10 ^ 8) - x / (3 * 10 ^ 2);

time diff ~= x(3 * 10 ^ 8) / (9 * 10 ^ 10);
~= x / ( 300)

u can see approximation was made therefore we assume light reached us almost instantaneously.

Answer 8

When you see the flash , there is in practice no time elapsed
You can suppose you see the flash at t=0
so no problem if you have waited x seconds until you heard thunder, you can calculate

distance = 343*x in meters

Answer 9

See this Link
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/jetstream/lightning/thunder.htm