What do you use to measure lightning and thunder?

Answer 1

hey, im also curious about this.. but i think it can be measured because lightning has also positive and negative charges (electric charge), and it's an electiricty.. and the SI unit to measure electric charge is Couloumb.

Answer 2

Yes, mostly as thunder. But technically, what you are hearing is the effect of lightning.

When a charge builds up in a cloud and an opposite charge builds up on the ground, the charges explosively connect, causing lightning. This discharge heats the air to a very high temperature. The sound we hear as thunder is the rapid expansion of the air that the lightning passes through. (If you are close enough, you can also hear the ionization that accompanies the discharge.) So we hear the direct effect of the lightning, but not the lightning itself.

Answer 3

Lightning is simply an electric current, and so has the properties of 'Current', measured in amps, 'Potential', measured in volts, and 'Power', measured in watts. (Also 'Energy', which is power over a period of time, measured in watt-hours.)

These properties vary greatly according to atmospheric conditions, but according to NASA, a typical strike has a peak power of up to 1 trillion watts (or 1,000 gigawatts - be careful you don't overload your flux-capacitor), a potential of up to 500,000 volts, and a peak current of up to 200,000 amps.

Answer 4

The time difference between the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder tells you the approximate distance. The time between when the flash happens and when you see it is negligible, but the speed of sound is approximately a mile every 5 seconds. So if you count the seconds and divide by 5, that will give you the rough distance of the lightning.

Answer 5

Lightning is measured depending on the speed of wind it has for example if the speed is 130 mph then the measurement of the lightning will be about only 40 or 50 length

Answer 6

You can't measure thunder and lightning. Unless you invent something that does measure it.

Answer 7

To measure the distance of a lightning strike, you can count the seconds between seeing the flash and hearing the thunder. For each 5 seconds you count, that indicates the lightning is 1 mile away.

Answer 8

You can't

Answer 9

yes