Whats the difference in lightening and thunder?

Question

anybody know?

Answer 1

Simply,thunder is the noise of lightning discharge.Lightning is the video part and thunder is the audio part of the thunderstorm;Here video only produces audio.

Answer 2

Lightening is the electrical arc.  This sometimes goes from cloud to cloud, but normally, the stuff you see is going from a cloud to the ground.

Thunder is the sound that is created when the heat from the lightening hits the cold air surrounding it.  Based on the speed of sound, you can usually tell how far away the lightening is, by counting how long it takes for the associated thunder to get to your ears...A 1-alligator, 2-alligator type count up to 8 means that it was about a mile away.  If the lightening and thunder happen at essentially the same time, it's very, very close, and you should be sure to find cover.

Answer 3

They are both caused by the same event but lightning is light and thunder makes noise.

Answer 4

Nothing because they are due to the same exact event. Thunder is what you hear, lightning is what you see, but both are due to electrical discharge in the atmosphere. They can seem to be separated in time to an observer (you see the lightening before you hear the thunder) because of the large difference in the speed of sound and the speed of light. If you are significant distance away (a few miles or kilometers), the light from the discharge will reach you almost instantly, but the sound can take several seconds to arrive. In fact you can measure the distance from you to the lightening in this way: for each second delay between seeing it and hearing it, the lightening bolt is approximately 300 meters, or 1000 ft away.

Answer 5

lightning is like electricity in the air in which it is very dangerous because lightning is mostly cloud to ground and if you are in in a thunder storm, you can easily get strucked by one. thunder is sound created right after lightning strikes.

Answer 6

lightning is a bright light of electricity that flashes in the sky and sometimes reaches the ground causing damage where thunder can only be heard as a loud noise and never seen and it dousn't thouch the ground

Answer 7

lightening lights up the sky and can be very dangerous. it can kill if it strikes you, thunder is very very noisy and just sets off car alarms xxxx

Answer 8

Lightening is the high powered static electrical charge that causes the flash of light in the sky and can strike items on the ground.  Thunder is the sonic boom created by the lightening as it cuts through the air well above the speed of sound.

*

Answer 9

Lightning is a very large bolt (discharge) of static electricity, that occurs between clouds, or the clouds and the ground.  As the lightning cuts through the air it heats it up very hot.  Lightning is actually about 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun, or about 50,000 Deg. F.  This sudden heating of the air causes it to expand with explosive force into the cooler surrounding air.  The thunder that you hear is actually the sound of the lightning-heated air crashing into the cooler air around it.  It's almost like a small explosion of air.

You can't have thunder without lightning in the area, but there is another similar sound produced by Military Jets, called a Sonic Boom.  Sonic Booms sound similar to loud thunder but don't "roll" as they dissipate.  They just go BOOM-BOOM and they're done.