Why do thunder and lightning occur?

Question

I've googled this and can't seem to find any useful information.

You explaining something or links to websites that are not too dumbed down are fine, but try not to list websites that are hard to follow.

So, Why do thunder and lightning occur?

Answer 1

The underlying problem is that nobody quite understands the various mechanisms. It seems likely that there are several different sorts of lightning, produced in several different ways. What seems to happen in at least some cases is that ice pellets formed from condensed moisture lifted aloft by updrafts in storms will tend to pick up positive charges if big and negative charges if small. (These may be reversed, and I don't know the reasons.) The air currents sort them out by size, and eventually the charges build up enough so that there's a discharge between the two groups of pellets inside the storm. But this doesn't explain cloud-to-ground lightning, or lots of other sorts of lightning.

Geophysicists and meteorologists study this stuff as best they can, but there's a lot of fraud in lightning science. At best, lightning research is disorganized, diffuse, and filled with squabbling partisans. We can't do controlled experiments, and the work is always expensive.

And no, there hasn't been much progress since Ben Franklin. It's just a tough problem. We don't even know all that much about rainfall, for that matter.

Answer 2

The time it takes for the sound to get to you depends on the air density due to temp 1 mile or kilometer is a very good rule of thumb. Thunder is caused by rapid heating of the air. Like a piece of red hot steel dropped in water makes. It's called the sound of thermal shock. Lightning is produced in thunderstorms when liquid and ice particles above the freezing level collide, and build up large electrical fields in the clouds. Once these electric fields become large enough, a giant "spark" occurs between them, like static electricity, reducing the charge separation. The lightning spark can occur between clouds, between the cloud and air, or between the cloud and ground. Cloud-to-ground lightning usually occurs near the boundary between the updraft region (where the darkest) clouds are, and the downdraft/raining region (with the lighter, fuzzy appearance). Sometimes, however, the lightning bolt can come out of the side of the storm, and strike a location miles away, seemingly coming out of the clear blue sky. As long as a thunderstorm continues to produce lightning, you know that the storm still has active updrafts and is still producing precipitation. The temperature inside a lightning bolt can reach 50,000 degrees F . Objects that are struck by lightning can catch on fire, or show little or no evidence of burning at all.

Answer 3

The clouds when mixing it up with the air, heat and cold loose and sometime gain electrons. The ground is at a constant spread of electrons. The clouds then try to even out the amount of electrons by a fast rapid exchange.This is the lightning part. The thunder part comes from the shock waves in the air when the lightning happens.

Answer 4

Lightning is an electrical discharge caused by negative charges in the bases of clouds being attracted to positive charges on the ground. The thunder that follows is the result of rapidly expanding gases in the atmosphere. In other words, these gases somewhat "explode" in the air above.

Answer 5

It is nature's way of discharging the excessively formed charged particles in the atmosphere.During the course of the discharge,lightning occurs.Thunder is the result of lightning.

Answer 6

different layers of air, when blowing over, generate frictional induced charge at the meeting point. This charge when discharge with a conductivty duct to the earth, generates a spark - the same thing when U rub ur comb on ur hairs and it gets charged - the same effect when magnified becomes lightening.

Answer 7

the simplest way to say it...it's friction. just like rubbing your socks on a carpet and shocking someone...the clouds that move around in the sky and rubbing against air. every now and then, the charge gets strong enough to shock the ground and disipate. hope that helps.