What causes lightening and thunder?

Question

Which is dangerous: lightening or thunder?

Answer 1

That's TWO questions Philip!

Cheat!

Answer 2

Water droplets falling from clouds can carry electrons away from the rest of the droplets like sand grains blowing off the top of a dune. This creates an electron "vacuum" in the cloud. These electrons then accumulate in the earth. Air does not ordinarily conduct electrical current, but if the voltage is high enough, it will. If a cloud low in electrons passes over an area of ground saturated with an electrical charge, the electrons can suddenly flow from the earth back into the cloud. The electrons superheat a thin column of air about an inch in diameter. The air molecules are ionized and this creates a form of matter known as a plasma. The sun and the gas inside a fluorescent tube are also plasma. Lightening is much brighter than fluorescent lights and is even brighter and hotter than the surface of the sun. This sudden generation of so much heat creates an explosion around the lightening and the sound wave produced is what humans percieve as thunder.

Answer 3

The lightning is a large electrical discharge and is the dangerous thing. Thunder is only the sound of it.

When clouds form in the air, they contain countless billions of water droplets which are constantly evaporating and condensing simultaneously.
As the vapour rises and the liquid falls, collisions take place that disrupt the molecules and electrons are released.
The 'lost' electrons stay in the lower clouds, causing a negative charge.
Moisture that has lost an electron rises and gives a positive charge to the higher cloud. This continues until the potential (Voltage) difference between the layers of cloud becomes great enough to cause an electric field which arcs across (short circuits) and causes a tremendous discharge of energy called lightning.
This potential difference can build to a point where it arcs to earth and we have lightning strikes to the ground. The thunder is the sound of the electrical discharges.

Answer 4

Lightning is the dangerous thing. It is caused when a channel between opposite charges between clouds, or between a cloud and the Earth, forms in the vicinity of storms. Air is a good insulator, so quite a bit of charge opposition has to develop. As this occurs, the opposite charges develop invisible "streamers" that reach toward each other. The bolt is the result of a connection being established.

Thunder is the concussion sound wave caused by the sudden heating of the air immediately surrounding a lightning bolt. The bolt has a temperature around 50,000 degrees which heats the air. The air then expands explosively and you subsequently hear this explosive expansion (and even feel it, if you are close enough).

Answer 5

Warm and moist air rises into the sky and cools dramatically forming thunder clouds.Some of the water inside the clouds freezes and strong air currents make the ice and water droplets bump together.This knocks tiny charged particles called electrons from the ice and there is a build-up of electrical charge.
In this process, some clouds lose electrons and acquire positive charge and others collect those elctrons and become negatively charged.
When clouds holding positive and negative static electrical charges approach one another,they constitute to form capacitors.Just like a capacitor discharges its accumulated charge once the breakdown potential is reached,the clouds(or a cloud and ground) also discharge the charges once the potential difference exceeds a certain limit.
This charge is released by a stroke of lightning and thunder in the following manner:-
During the course of the discharge, a very heavy current flows between the clouds( or between the cloud and the earth) and this electrical energy is converted into enormous heat which heats the air to an incredible 30000 degree celcius or 54000 degree fahrenheit, five times hotter than the surface of the sun.This heat devastates molecules and particles of the discharged portions of the clouds into a plasma state which emits bright radiation(lightning light) and sends intense pressure variations in the atmosphere resulting in the sudden expansion of air faster than the speed of sound.It is this which produces a loud noise called thunder.
LIghtning only is dangerous as it can damage buildings,kill people if they are in an open area,and burn trees if they pass through them.Thunder is only a loud noise which can only damage human ears which is very rare.

Answer 6

Clouds are rubbing up against each other, as they do this, they pick up electrons and become negatively charged, once the charge they build up is great enough, or they come into closer contact with something that has a positive charge (i.e. something on the ground) you will see lightning, which is this charge being transfered so that the cloud is at a more stable state in the sense that it has the same relative charge as the cloud next to it. Since the charge has to be pretty high to get electricity to flow through air, this action is very violent, and thunder is a direct result of the lightning, but can seem delayed since light travels faster than sound. Sometimes, you may only hear thunder, because the lightning is traveling between clouds, and our view of the lightning is obstructed.

To answer the question about danger, since thunder is only the sound of lightning it poses no danger, but lightning itself, traveling through your body, can burn tissue, stop your heart as well as kill you on its path to ground.

Answer 7

Lightning is more dangerous because lighting cause thunder.

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.

Answer 8

Lighting is caused when negative charges in the ground collide with positive charges in the air... think of it as friction and static. Thats why trees and tall objects are struck because positive charges climb up them. Thunder is basically the air exploding around lightning due to the extreme amount of heat it causes.

Answer 9

The lightning is caused by an electrical charge that builds up inside the storm due to the movement of water droplets or crystals carried by the wind. And is very dangerous

Thunder is the sound made by lightning and is not dangerous

Answer 10

thunder is charged particles that collide into each other
lightning is the charge discharging to reach the ground
lightening is dangerous as we conduct electricity

Answer 11

Cold air front meets Warm/Hot air front.
Static in the air. Ions I think cause the Lightening. ZAP!
Cool how the zig zag shapes in the sky, seen the triple or quaduple fork lift strike?