THUNDER AND LIGHTNING IS A QUIET STORM CRACK

This separates the positive (+) and negative (-) charges of the cloud. Small negatively charged particles called electrons are knocked off some ice and added to other ice as they crash past each other. The expansion creates a shock wave that turns into a booming sound wave.ДЄs ice crystals high within a thunderstorm cloud flow up and down in the turbulent air, they crash into each other. This extreme heating causes the air to expand explosively fast. A single stroke of lightning can heat the air around it to 54,000вЏ. Once again thanks for your thoughts and prayers and for Slim filling in during my absence.ДЄs children we may have been told that the gods were bowling in the heavens which cause all the racket in the skies during a storm.

I will muddle through, though I still feel I am floundering about on the crap wagon.

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING IS A QUIET STORM CRACK

Different layers of air temperatures can even amplify the sound of thunder-a temperature inversion (warm air trapped between two layers of cooler air) that occurs near a thunderstorm can cause a rare phenomenon known as вЂњducting,вЂќ which allows a loud crack of thunder to travel through the inversion for dozens of miles, often scaring people who think they just heard an explosion rather than a thunderstorm many miles away.Though a bit late I am continuing on with my posts on storms вЂ“ we covered tornadoes last week. Features like mountains, valleys, and buildings can both muffle thunder or cause it to echo loudly. Heavy rain or snow can muffle the sound of thunder and reduce how far the sound can travel away from the lightning bolt. The environment around you can also affect how well you hear thunder. This phenomenon is incorrectly called вЂњheat lightning,вЂќ as people used to think that it was the hot, muggy air itself causing the lightning instead of a thunderstorm off on the horizon. If you have a good view of the horizon on a stormy day, you can see dozens of lightning strikes and flashes in the clouds off in the distance without ever hearing the resulting thunder. You can see the flash of a lightning bolt in a thunderstorm more than 100 miles away from your location. The sound of thunder dissipates as it travels away from the point of the lightning strike, only traveling a dozen miles or so before petering out. Image credit:В snakeyes-man via FlickrВ // CC BY-NC-ND 2.0Д®ven though all lightning creates thunder, you can see lightning without hearing thunder. This answers our question: All lightning creates thunder because all lightning is hot enough to create that sonic boom.ДЄ flash of lightning in a thunderstorm on the horizon.

This superheated air expands out at a rapid pace in the form of a sonic boom, which is the rumble of thunder we hear and sometimes feel. Even though most bolts only last for a fraction of a second, those extreme temperatures still rapidly heat up the air around the bolt. No matter where it originates or what it strikes, lightning is hot in fact, the average lightning bolt is many times hotter than the surface of the Sun. We also commonly see lightning strike from cloud to cloud, lightning flashes within the same cloud, and lightning that stretches from a cloud to the air around it. While all lightning is dangerous, positive strikes are the most dangerous because theyвЂ™re much stronger than negatively charged bolts and they can strike dozens of miles away from a thunderstorm where the skies are clear (a вЂњbolt from the blueвЂќ).

The type weвЂ™re most familiar with is cloud-to-ground lightning-this can originate from the base of the clouds (negative lightning) or from high up in the thunderstorm (positive lightning). You can see quite a few different types of lightning during a thunderstorm. Like all weather events, lightning is just natureвЂ™s attempt to balance things out-in this case, itвЂ™s trying to balance out an uneven electrical field in the atmosphere. Ice crystals and water droplets bouncing around high in a thunderstorm create static electricity that results in different layers of positive and negative electrical charges throughout the clouds and on the ground below. Lightning is a static discharge in the atmosphere. Is it possible to have lightning without hearing any thunder? The approach of a thunderstorm is unmistakable-sometimes you even hear the crack of thunder before you see any clouds. A vivid and energetic thunderstorm can strike awe and fear into anyone close enough to experience these intense displays of natureвЂ™s raw power. Lightning is one of the most spectacular forces on Earth.

Thunder and lightning is a quiet storm