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A return stroke, cloud-to-ground lightning strike during a thunderstorm. Cloud-to-ground lightning frequently occurs within the phenomena of thunderstorms and have numerous hazards towards landscapes and populations. One of the more significant hazards lightning can pose is the wildfires they are capable of igniting. [54]
With lightning nearby, avoid contact with electrical devices, corded phones and metal pipes while indoors. It is safe to go outdoors 30 minutes after hearing the last clap of thunder.
An observer can approximate the distance to the strike by timing the interval between the visible lightning and the audible thunder it generates. A lightning flash preceding its thunder by one second would be approximately 343 m (0.213 miles) away; thus a delay of three seconds would indicate a distance of about 1 km (0.62 miles); while a flash ...
The flash of a lightning strike and resulting thunder occur at roughly the same time. But light travels 300,000 km/sec, almost a million times the speed of sound. Sound travels at the slower speed of about 340 m/sec (depending on the temperature), so the flash of lightning is seen before thunder is heard. A method to determine the distance ...
If historical trends hold, deaths by lightning will peak this month. Typically, 32 people die every year in the U.S., most of them while recreating.
Forecasters say lightning is. ... initiating another round of severe thunderstorms across the region just days after dangerous storms unloaded large hail and damaging winds in areas from Texas to ...
Thunder is the sound caused by and after lightning. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Depending upon the distance from and nature of the lightning, it can range from a long, low rumble to a sudden, loud crack. The sudden increase in temperature and hence pressure caused by the lightning produces rapid expansion of the air in the path of a lightning bolt . [ 4 ]
Dry lightning refers to lightning strikes occurring in this situation. Both are so common in the American West that they are sometimes used interchangeably. [2] Dry thunderstorms occur essentially in dry conditions, and their lightning is a major cause of wildfires.