thunderstorms?

Question

why does thunder make noise???

Answer 1

The lightning heats the air to an incredible 54000 degree Farenheit,five times hotter than the surface of the sun.This heat causes the air to expand very fast,i.e. faster than the speed of sound.It is this which causes the crash thunder.
In other words,thunder is a type of "sonic boom"(Shocks caused by supersonic flights like concorde plane,which generate enormous amount of sound energy like an explosion) created by the rapid heating and expansion of air.The air should expand faster than the speed of sound to produce this sound.

Answer 2

the sound which is known as thunder is due simply to the fact that the air traversed by an electric spark, that is, a flash of lightning, is suddenly raised to a very high temperature, and has its volume, moreover considerably increased. The column of gas thus suddenly heated and expanded is sometimes several miles long and as the duration of the flash is not even a millionth of a second, it follows that the noise bursts forth at once from the whole column, though for an observer in any one place it commences where lightning is at least distance.

Answer 3

The air is not a very good electricity conductor and when lightning happens, it is heated to about 15,000 degrees centigrade. Air expands and water content explodes. In the moist air of a thunderstorm there is about 14 grammes of water per cubic meter of air. While not much in itself, when it goes from solid water to molecules of oxygen and hydrogen, it does it with a big bang.

Answer 4

So you can hear it.