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The most noticeable aspect of lightning and thunder is that the lightning is seen before the thunder is heard. This is a consequence of the speed of light being much greater than the speed of sound. The speed of sound in dry air is approximately 343 m/s (1,130 ft/s) or 1,236 km/h (768 mph) at 20 °C (68 °F; 293 K). [19]
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 ...
Lightning is detected remotely using sensors that detect cloud-to-ground lightning strokes with 95 percent accuracy in detection and within 250 metres (820 ft) of their point of origin. [105] Summer storm in 19th-century Polish countryside – picture by Jozef Chelmonski, 1896, 107 cm (42.1 in)x163 cm (64.1 in), National Museum in Cracow
The Earth is struck by lightning nearly 20 million times each year, and bolts of lightning can travel as much as 10 to 12 miles from a thunderstorm, instantly heating the air to 50,000 degrees ...
Sympathetic lightning is the tendency of lightning to be loosely coordinated across long distances. Discharges can appear in clusters when viewed from space. [22] [23] [24] [clarification needed] Upward lightning or ground-to-cloud lightning is a lightning flash which originates from the top of a grounded object and propagates upward from this ...
When there's thunder and lightning outside, childhood instinct says to hide under the covers. Check out these crazy lightning snapshots: Unfortunately, a woman in Michigan found out this week that ...
The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit of time by a sound wave as it propagates through an elastic medium. More simply, the speed of sound is how fast vibrations travel. At 20 °C (68 °F), the speed of sound in air, is about 343 m/s (1,125 ft/s; 1,235 km/h; 767 mph; 667 kn), or 1 km in 2.91 s or one mile in 4.69 s.