What is thunder and lighting?!?

Question

what causes the light adn the sound?

Answer 1

Lightning is an atmospheric discharge of electricity, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms. In the atmospheric electrical discharge, a leader of a bolt of lightning can travel at speeds of 60,000 m/s, and can reach temperatures approaching 30,000 °C (54,000 °F), hot enough to fuse silica sand into petrified lightning, known scientifically as glass channels or fulgurites which are normally hollow and can extend some distance into the ground. There are some 16 million lightning storms in the world every year. For an American, the chance of being struck by lightning is approximately 576,000 to 1 and the chance of actually being killed by lightning is approximately 2,320,000 to 1.

Lightning can also occur within the ash clouds from volcanic eruptions, or can be caused by violent forest files which generate sufficient dust to create a static charge.

How lightning initially forms is still a matter of debate: Scientists have studied root causes ranging from atmospheric perturbations (wind, humidity, friction, and atmospheric pressure) to the impact of solar wind and accumulation of charged solar particles.Ice inside a cloud is thought to be a key element in lightning development, and may cause a forcible separation of positive and negative charges within the cloud, thus assisting in the formation of lightning.

Thunder is the sound made by lightning. Depending on the nature of the lightning and distance of the listener, it can range from a sharp, loud crack to a long, low rumble. The sudden increase in pressure and temperature from lightning produces rapid expansion of the air surrounding and within a bolt of lightning. In turn, this expansion of air creates a sonic shock wave which produces the sound of thunder.

Answer 2

To put it simply, lightning is electricity.  It forms in the strong up-and-down air currents inside tall dark cumulonimbus clouds as water droplets, hail, and ice crystals collide with one another. These collisions build up charges of electricity in a cloud.  The positive and negative electrical charges in the cloud separate from one another, the negative charges dropping to the lower part of the cloud and the positive charges staying ins the middle and upper parts. Positive electrical charges also build upon the ground below.  When the difference in the charges becomes large enough, a flow of electricity moves from the cloud down to the ground or from one part of the cloud to another, or from one cloud to another cloud.  In typical lightning these are down-flowing negative charges, and when the positive charges on the ground leap upward to meet them, the jagged downward path of the negative charges suddenly lights up with a brilliant flash of light. Because of this, our eyes fool us into thinking that the lightning bolt shoots down from the cloud, when in fact the lightning travels up from the ground. In some cases, positive charges come to the ground from severe thunderstorms or from the anvil at the very top of a thunderstorm cloud.  The whole process takes less than a millionth of a second.  

Initially large amount of heat energy is produced which is converted to sound and light.

The sound is heard as thunder

Answer 3

Lightning is the electrostatic discharge between atmospheric layers

of unlike charges.lightning can occur either between these layers,

or between the ground and upper layers.

the 'thunder' is sound of the air being displaced by the lightning.

this displacement happens so rapidly that there is a great deal of

pressure in the form of a sound wave.

Answer 4

huge electrical charge builds up as the cloud particles become electrified and the charged particles separate. The positive charge fixes near the top of the cloud and the negative charge at the base. A positive shadow charge builds up on the ground beneath. An electric current is then discharged in a blinding flash as lightning zig zags between ground and cloud. A weak spark known as the stepped leader reaches down from the cloud and a positive leader rises to meet it. The main discharge called the return stroke takes place from ground to cloud along the channel created by the two leaders. We also see intra-cloud lightning within the cloud and inter-cloud lightning between clouds. When the lightning is hidden or diffused by clouds we call it sheet lightning.

You will always see lightning before you hear thunder as light travels faster than sound