When does the thunder hits the ground?

Question

Is it when we see the light or when we hear the sound or sometimes in between?

Answer 1

Your Answer =

Sometimes in between, or more correctly

When a lightening bolt strikes like magic it is there, and then it quickly disappears.

Air rushes to fill the void where the lightening bolt had just been, and the result is often a very loud clap of thunder.

Sound travels at a much slower speed than light, however the ground is vast with regard given to distance therefor if a lightening bolt strikes three miles from your location and you view the flash, you can generally count three seconds before you hear the sound, however when you counted one second, the sound is striking the ground two miles from you, when you count to two seconds the sound is striking the ground one mile from you, and when you count to three the sound is striking the ground at your feet, and also every singular point of your body including your ear.

You could think of the sound leaving the lightening bolt much in the same way as a circular ripple in the water which is created when you drop a stone in the water, the wave moves outward from the force of the stone which just penetrated the surface of the water.

My goodness after reading other response's here I came back to add more details.

Thunder does hit the ground, it is a sound wave
and travels in all directions outward from the lightening occurrence good grief people.

If you dug a hole in the soil, and buried all of your body in the ground only leaving one ear exposed do you truly believe that you would not hear thunder from a lightening occurrence just because your ear was where the ground should be.

Sound waves are just as real and tangible as stones and both sound and stones are energy, simply because the ground does not have ears to hear the sound waves, does not mean that sound does not strike the ground and react with it by vibrating the soil.

Sound is a force that is powerful enough to vibrate my eardrum.

Also sometimes sound causes avalanches in mountain ranges just from the sounds of people talking, and that is a very simple fact which proves me correct.

Answer 2

Ahh... my Natural Resource degree is going to come into use!

Actually, thunder does not 'hit' the ground. And in fact, thunder is what we hear, not what we see.

A storm causes the particles in the storm cloud to become charged with either positive or negative charges. The negative charged particles are heavier then the positively charged particles. Consequently, the negatively charged particles sink to the bottom of the cloud.

The ground is positively charged. Opposites attract. ;-) When you see lightening, what has actually happened is that the attraction between the cloud and the ground has become so great that the negatively charged particles from the cloud has moved downward and the positively charged particles from the ground have moved upward. When they meet... you see the light.

You hear the boom of the lightening strike (thunder) because lightening heats up the air so fast and so hot (hotter then the sun) that the air expands violently ... causing a boom.

Now to address your question regarding as to timing. Light travels faster then sound. So, unless you are standing right next to where the lightening strikes... you will see the lightening 'strike' first and then hear the boom. How long it takes to hear the boom will tell you approximately how far away the lightening strike was. Basically, to determine how far away you are from the strike, you count the number of seconds between the 'light' and the boom... then divide by 5. That will give an approximation of how far in miles you are away from the source.

Answer 3

Thunder hits the ground about the time you hear it. Lightning causes the thunder by superheating the air. When the cold air rushes in after the lightning flash, it collides from all directions and causes thunder, just like clapping your hands. Lightning travels from a negative charge to a positive charge and sometimes goes up to the cloud from the ground, but it goes back and forth so fast it looks like it comes down from the clouds. The speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound and that is why you see the flash before you hear the rumble.

Answer 4

Thunder can't hit the ground, it sound waves caused by the striking lightning. Since lightning is five time hotter than the sun, when it suddenly strikes, it causes a concussion of instant sound. That is the thunder, the further away from the lightning the longer it takes for the sound to arrive where you are, The rule of thumb is when you count to five and hear thunder, that lightning is one mile away, Every second equal 1/5 mile.

Answer 5

No it doesnt but Thunder is a loud, explosive, resounding noise produced by the explosive expansion of air heated by a lightning discharge. The Thunder takes place in the clouds. The only part of a Thunderstorm that you see is the Lightening. As for lightening A cloud-to-ground lightning strike begins as an invisible channel of electrically charged air moving from the cloud toward the ground. When one channel nears an object on the ground, a powerful surge of electricity from the ground moves upward to the cloud and produces the visible lightning strike!

Answer 6

Thunder doesn't hit the ground, lightning does. As far as thunder associated with lightning striking the ground - we see the lightning before we hear the thunder because light travels faster than sound.

Answer 7

Thunder doesn't hit the ground. It is the noise that is made when the lightning cracks. You just usually see the lightning first as light travels faster than sound.

You can tell how close the lightning is by how soon after you hear the thunder.

Answer 8

Lightning hits the ground hun. The sound is the thunder, and it's made by the rapid changes in pressure on its way to the ground.

Answer 9

thunder doesn't hit the ground. Lightning hits the ground and causes a sound called thunder.

Answer 10

possibly the floor will fry or have been given a hollow or something merely think of that thunder have lot of electron and exceptionally electric power, while it hit a tree, the tree merely have a headband<--(it this spell genuine?,as a results of fact i do no longer possibly good in English, i propose i from different u . s .), what i propose it the tree have a hollow shape like a thunder, or something, difficult to describe!! :-( , besides, the thunder ought to have a reason to strike the floor, like interior the backyard, do no longer stand there on my own interior the rain, as a results of fact thunder opt to strike the utmost place, like sky crapper, so once you on my own on the backyard, there no longer something at there, then you relatively're the utmost merchandise at there, so bye2 :-) , so this is like little bit impossible that thunder strike the floor with out some merchandise there, ok bye.