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What Causes Thunder
Thunder is a sound caused by lightning. It is the shock wave produced when lightning strikes. Things expand when they are heated.
The super heated air caused by a lightning strike (approximately 50,000 to 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit) pulses outward. Thunder occurs when the super heated air meets cooler surrounding air. Since the hotter air is traveling at a speed much greater than the cooler air, the collision of the two causes a shock wave and thunder is the sound of that shockwave. The sound of an explosion is caused the same way. Hotter, faster air meeting cooler, slower moving air. Only with thunder, lightning is the impetus of the rush of air, not explosives. Distance
You can roughly calculate the distance of a lightning strike using thunder. If you see lightning count off the seconds before you hear the thunder. It usually takes 4.6 seconds for the sound of thunder to travel one mile, so we approximate 5 seconds per mile. If you see a lightning flash and hear thunder immediately after, take cover. That means the lightning is close.
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Contributor's Note
Hubby says he learns a lot of trivia from baseball announcers.
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Lightning Strike
Lightning Damage
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Previous to reading this I had not realised that when you hear thunder there has been lightening somewhere else. Seems obvious now that I think about it.
Thunder travels through air at "the speed of sound". Officially the speed of sound is 1,087 feet per second (331.3 meters per second) in dry air at 32 degrees F (0 degrees C). At a normal temperature like 82 degrees F (25 degrees C) the speed is 1200 feet per second (346 meters per second). The speed of sound changes depending on the temperature and the humidity. Sound travels a mile in roughly 5 seconds and a kilometer in roughly 3 seconds.
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
Thank you for the math behind our "roughly 5 seconds to travel one mile."
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