Since light travels faster than sound, you can tell how many miles away a thunder storm is by counting. Lightning strikes. 5 seconds pass and you heard thunder. The thunder storm is 5 miles away.
you can see the lightning for only about a second or so but you can hear the thunder for a couple seconds.
By listening for the thunder. When you see a prominent lightning strike, start counting "one thousand one, one thousand two", etc. Each of those is about one second. There are five seconds in every mile (sound travels 1/5th of a mile per second). If you count to fifteen, the lightning strike is three miles away. Lightning and thunder occur at the same instant when the lightning strike is very close to you, and the thunder will sound more like a cymbal crash.
Light is virtually instantaneous over any distance you'd be aware of a thunderstorm going on. Sound, however, takes five seconds to travel through air for each mile. If the thunder and the lightning are simultaneous, the lightning strike is very close to you. If the thunder is five seconds after the lightning, the lightning was one mile away. If the thunder is ten seconds after the lightning, the lightning was 2 miles away, and so on.
The delay between lightning and thunder occurs because light travels much faster than sound. Lightning travels at the speed of light, approximately 299,792 kilometers per second, while thunder travels at the speed of sound, about 343 meters per second in air. As a result, when you see a lightning strike, you may not hear the thunder until several seconds later, depending on your distance from the strike. The general rule of thumb is that for every five seconds between seeing lightning and hearing thunder, the storm is about one mile away.
This doesn't really make sense because there is no specific time span between lightning strikes. The only thing I can say is that if the lightning is brighter, than it is no more than three miles way from where you are currently. And I'm not talking about altitude either.
you can see the lightning for only about a second or so but you can hear the thunder for a couple seconds.
If there are many seconds between the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder, it indicates that the storm is far away. Each second of delay between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder represents a distance of about 1 mile between you and the lightning strike.
By listening for the thunder. When you see a prominent lightning strike, start counting "one thousand one, one thousand two", etc. Each of those is about one second. There are five seconds in every mile (sound travels 1/5th of a mile per second). If you count to fifteen, the lightning strike is three miles away. Lightning and thunder occur at the same instant when the lightning strike is very close to you, and the thunder will sound more like a cymbal crash.
Light is virtually instantaneous over any distance you'd be aware of a thunderstorm going on. Sound, however, takes five seconds to travel through air for each mile. If the thunder and the lightning are simultaneous, the lightning strike is very close to you. If the thunder is five seconds after the lightning, the lightning was one mile away. If the thunder is ten seconds after the lightning, the lightning was 2 miles away, and so on.
If it is a thunderstorm, you check how long it takes to hear the thunder after you see a lightning strike. For every five seconds, the lightning strike is about one mile away. The lightning causes the thunder, and the sound travels at a speed of about one mile per five seconds.
Roughly 1 mile away. Sound travels at about 1 mile every 5 seconds, so the time difference between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder can give you an estimate of the distance to the lightning strike.
If you hear the thunder almost at the same time as the lightning flash - the storm is directly overhead. Usually - the sound of thunder arrives a few seconds after the lightning, because light travels much faster than sound.
This doesn't really make sense because there is no specific time span between lightning strikes. The only thing I can say is that if the lightning is brighter, than it is no more than three miles way from where you are currently. And I'm not talking about altitude either.
To estimate the distance to a lightning strike, count the seconds between the flash and the sound of thunder. Divide this number by 5 to get the distance in miles, or divide by 3 to get the distance in kilometers.
The width of a thunder refers to the sound produced by lightning. Thunder can be heard up to 10 miles away from a lightning strike, with the volume of sound decreasing the further you are from the strike.
No, thunder actually happens simultaneously with lightning. The sound of thunder is created by the rapid expansion and contraction of the air surrounding a lightning bolt. The time it takes for you to hear thunder after seeing lightning depends on how far away the lightning strike is. Every 5 seconds between seeing a lightning flash and hearing the thunder equals approximately 1 mile of distance.
No. Thunder is the noise that lightning makes.