Differences in Thunder?

Question

I have noticed that there is a difference in thunder from night to day. The thunder in early morning (like 5:00 am) thunderstorms seems to really BOOM loudly, and make your house shake, whereas other storms later in the day do not seem to do this. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this seems to happen? Is there a difference in the lightning? Air? Temperature? I'm stumped... does anyone even know what i am talking about? lol

Answer 1

depends on how saturated the cloud is..

Answer 2

There really is no difference.  Daytime thunder can shake your house the same way.  It just seems louder and more sudden when it happens in the quieter time of the night, and wakes you up.

Answer 3

I am not in disagreement with the previous two answers, but I have something to add. Cloud bases in the early morning would be lower than in the afternoon, as daytime heating can cause some lift in the cloud bases. Lower cloud bases could mean the lightning and its associated sound could be slightly closer to the ground, I suppose.

So, it is always possible that this reason plays into it, along with the noise pollution being much lower in the early morning than in the afternoon, making the thunder sound more prominent in the early morning.

Drop a plate on the floor of an empty house, versus a house full of kids playing loudly.  

Answer 4

There really is no difference in the thunder.  The reason it seems louder at night is because it is so dark and quiet.  Therefore it is more noticeable.  Thunder is loud.  Sometimes it cracks, sometimes it rumbles, but it is always loud unless it is in the distance.