How does thunder make noise.?

Question

How does thunder make noise.?

Answer 1

lightning rapidly increases the temperature of the surrounding air.This expansion (due to heat) disrupts the air resulting in thunder

Answer 2

thunder doesnt make noise lightning does. it does it when lightning stikes the super heated air expands. that expanding air makes a sound like an explosion and thats what you hear.

Answer 3

Thor strikes with his mighty hammer.

Answer 4

When the lightning strikes, a pocket of hot, high pressure gas forms.  This results in a weak shock wave that propagates away from the location of the strike.  The noise that you hear is a change in pressure from the resulting wave.

One of the answers below states that the lighting creates a vacuum which is incorrect.  The lighting actually creates a plasma which is a a gas that has electrons flowing freely in it.

Answer 5

This question has no answer because thunder doesn't make any noise but in fact is the noise.  Thunder is the term given to the noise produced by lighting.  A simple explination of how this happens is that when lighting passes through the air it creates a vacuum.  When the lighting removes it self the air molecules crash vioently when filling in the vacuum.  Although there is still debate on the specifics lighting is definitly the cause

Answer 6

As a few others have pointed out......the lightening is from the expansion of the air because of the heat of the lightening.

Interesting note.....the sound you are hearing is sort of a sonic boom..it breaks the sound barrier.  This is the reason you can count seconds and determine how far away the strike was.  One second = one mile.

Answer 7

Thunder is caused by lightning.

It's like fireworks the heat from the explosion or strike disrupts the molecules(non-living versions of cell, all non living things are made of atoms and molecules) in the are causing them to expand. Hot air expands and cold air shrinks lightning is very very hot!

The air surrounding it's much cooler while the lightning is30,000 degrees Celsius or 54,000. The air is shocked like you'd be if your step from a 100 degree steam bath to a 0 degree day outside automatically.It's an examble of a shock wave.

Different lightning makes different thunder sounds.

Branch or forked lightning makes that splitting-cracking thunder while sheet or flash lightning caused the rolling sound thats more gentle rolling sound.

Answer 8

God Yells?

Answer 9

i'm not sure how true this is, but i think its when the energy from the lightning itself expands the air around it and esentually "blows up"

sometimes its because the lightning has hit something and then it makes a loud *** noise.

Answer 10

Lightning is a giant spark. A single stroke of lightning can heat the air around it to 30,000 degrees Celsius (54,000 degrees Farhenheit)! This extreme heating causes the air to expand at an explosive rate. The expansion creates a shock wave that turns into a booming sound wave, better known as thunder.

Answer 11

The heat of the lightning causes a very rapid expansion of the air around it. This expansion causes the thunder sound.

Answer 12

Wasn't Thor that little alien on SG-1?  Well, it goes boom because of the expansion of air as it breaks the sound barrior much like a jet does.

Answer 13

I believe it has to do with the cold air hitting the warmer air.  The lightning comes after the thunder.

Answer 14

the noise is from god and the angels bowling.