What makes the sound of thunder? Does lightning make noise?

Question

Seems like a dumb question but I am confused. Lightning can make noise right? When you get a small electrical shock from dragging your feet on the carpet and touching metal it makes a tick sound.That's electricity making noise. Is the thunder that ticking sound just louser. You see the flash then hear the thunder is that because the lightning made the sound and light travels faster than sound. I always thought thunder was the air masses colliding but I am not so sure anymore.

Answer 1

It superheats the air which expands like an explosion.

Answer 2

Lightning causes thunder. Thunder is the sound caused by rapidly expanding gases along a channel of lightning discharge. Energy from lightning heats the air to around 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit. This causes a rapid expansion of the air, creating a sound wave heard as thunder. An initial tearing sound is usually caused by the stepped leader, and the sharp click or crack heard at a very close range, just before the main crash of thunder, is caused by the ground streamer.

Thunder is rarely heard at points farther than 15 miles from the lightning discharge, but occasionally can be heard up to 25 miles away. At these distances, thunder is heard as more of a low rumbling sound because the higher frequency pitches are more easily absorbed by the surrounding environment, and the sound waves set off by the lightning discharge have different arrival times.

Answer 3

well yes and no the lighten is so hot and fast that the air moves out of the way at a sonic speed and that is the doom that you there after you see the lighten

Answer 4

thunder is the sound of hot and cold air clashing together up above, which explains why people say that it sounds like clashing bowling balls together. lightning can sometimes make noise if it hits something in its path like electrical wires, trees, houses, etc. But usually it doesnt because its electrical currents.

Answer 5

Lightening doesn't make noise, but it does make the air really hot, and it expands very quickly. What you hear as thunder is all those air molecules moving and crashing into each other.

Answer 6

Yes, lightning is like a spark only much, MUCH bigger.

Yes, thunder is the sound made by lightning.  It is like that "tick" sound that a spark makes, only much, MUCH louder.

What we hear as sound is the result of our ears detecting acoustical waves in the air.  When lightning happens, it heats the air up so much that the air expands outward like an explosion, and then when the lightning ends, it collapses in again.  This creates intense shock waves through the air.  Acoustical waves are one of the components of these shock waves, which is why we can hear it.  There are other types of waves in the shock wave, like compressional waves, which we can sometimes feel if the lightning is close to us.

The light emitted by lightning travels from the lightning to your eye at around 186,000 miles PER SECOND.  This is effectively instantaneous!  Sound, however, is much slower.  It travels through the air at about 0.2 miles per second (almost a million times slower than light).  So, you will hear thunder after you see the lightning, since the sound travels to your ears much slower than the light travels to your eyes.

So, if you see a flash of lightning and count the seconds until you hear the thunder, you can determine how far away the lightning was.  It is one mile for every five seconds.

Air masses colliding don't make thunder (or any sound at all).  However, they often make storms that generate lightning, and the lightning creates thunder.

Bonus fact:  we're having lightning right now where I live!

Answer 7

It's the sonic boom of the superheated air dispersing into the surrounding cooler air. Lightning causes the heat. The rush of the air causes the sound.