Why is lightning so loud?

Question

Why is lightning so loud?

Answer 1

This is from memory, but I believe it is the rapid displacement of air due to super-heating.  It is the same reason a popping balloon makes a loud noise.

Answer 2

Actually the "lightning" does create the "noise" or Thunder.

Lightning is a discharge of vast amounts of electrostatic buildup within the clouds due to their rapid movement. When the charge reaches a high enough "electrical voltage potential" required to break through the "resistance" of the atmospheric air, an "electrical discharge" of the static charge occurs. The amount of "current" is extremely high. It is this current that heats up the air as it makes a path to Earth. This heat is very high and also creates the "light" due to the ionization of the air. This rapid heating causes a very rapid expansion of the air with an accompanying acoustic "shock wave" that produces the thunder.

Read more detail in the reference: ****

"In the 20th century a consensus evolved that thunder must begin with a shock wave in the air due to the sudden thermal expansion of the plasma in the lightning channel. In a fraction of a second the air is heated to a temperature approaching 28,000 °C (50,000 °F)[1]. This heating causes it to expand outward, plowing into the surrounding cooler air at a speed faster than sound would travel in that cooler air. The outward-moving pulse that results is a shock wave, similar in principle to the shock wave formed by an explosion, or at the front of a supersonic aircraft. More recently, this consensus has been eroded by the observation that measured overpressures in simulated lightning are greater than what could be achieved by the amount of heating found. Alternative proposals rely on electrodynamic effects of the massive current acting on the plasma in the bolt of lightning. [2]"  ****

Answer 3

I agree with Dan

Answer 4

Lightning doen't make noise....

Thunder does.

Answer 5

Heat from a lightning flash,which can reach 22000 degree celcius causes the surrounding air molecules to expand rapidly producing the sound waves we hear as thunder.The sound is so loud because,thunder is a type of sonic boom.A sonic boom is created whenever an object travels faster than sound.It is caused by air pressure waves piling up in front of the object( in the same way as a bow wave forms before a boat),then beig released as a shock wave.The larger the object, the louder the boom.

Answer 6

Lightning makes no sound...it is the thunder.