How Fast Does Thunder Travel?

When lightning strikes, a noise is made which we call thunder. Thunder travels much slower, at the speed of sound, about

1088 feet per second

. It takes sound about 5 seconds to travel one mile. You can observe this for yourself.

How long does it take thunder to travel?

The loud boom that you sometimes hear is created by the main lightning channel as it reaches the ground. Since you see lightning immediately and it takes the sound of thunder

about 5 seconds to travel a mile

, you can calculate the distance between you and the lightning.

What is the 30 30 rule for lightning?

Don't forget the 30-30 rule.

After you see lightning, start counting to 30

. If you hear thunder before you reach 30, go indoors. Suspend activities for at least 30 minutes after the last clap of thunder.

How far does thunder travel in 10 seconds?

Whats faster sound or lightning?

Lightning and thunder happen at the same time. But you see lightning before you hear thunder because

light, which travels a million times faster than sound

, arrives almost instantly. Sound, on the other hand, takes about five seconds to travel one mile.

What's faster light or lightning?

Comparing it with the average lightning speed,

Light is ~ 675.45 times faster

.

Does counting seconds after lightning work?

A general rule of thumb to know how far off a bolt of lightning is when you hear thunder,

if you count the number of seconds between the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder, and then divide by 5, you'll get the distance in miles to the lightning

: 5 seconds = 1 mile, 15 seconds = 3 miles, 0 seconds = very close.

Does thunder travel a mile a second?

Thunder travels much slower, at the speed of sound, about 1088 feet per second.

It takes sound about 5 seconds to travel one mile

.

Is it safe to shower during a lightning storm?

Lightning can travel through plumbing. It is best to avoid all water during a lightning storm.

Do not shower, bathe, wash dishes, or wash your hands

.

Is it OK to have your AC on during thunderstorm?

Operating your air conditioner during a thunderstorm can lead to some damage to your unit, so it's best to shut it down when the weather starts acting up

. Luckily, humidity and temperature drops when storms roll in, so you'll get some relief even though your air conditioner is not in use.

How Close Can lightning be to shake a house?

yourself

, but your home is always at risk, even if a strike is a mile away. In fact, Richard Kithil of the National Lightning Safety Institute says indirect lightning strikes are 2000 times more likely to cause “mischief” than a direct strike.

Can you swim when there is thunder?

A:

Swimming during a thunderstorm is one of the most dangerous things you can do

. Lightning regularly strikes water, and since water conducts electricity, a nearby lightning strike could kill or injure you. Any time you hear thunder, or see lightning, you should get out of the water and into a safe place.

Can there be thunder without lightning?

No, it is not possible to have thunder without lightning

. Thunder starts as a shockwave from the explosively expanding lightning channel when a large current causes rapid heating. However, it is possible that you might see lightning and not hear the thunder because it was too far away.

How long for the thunder to be heard if it strikes 12 km away from your location?

After you see a flash of lightning, count the number of seconds until you hear the thunder. (Use the stop watch or count “One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-Mississippi,” etc.)

For every 5 seconds the storm is one mile away

. Divide the number of seconds you count by 5 to get the number of miles.

How far away can lightning be seen?

All lightning comes from a thunderstorm, but you can see that lightning many miles away from a storm when the sky is clear (clear away from the storm, of course). How far? Depending on visibility conditions, you can see lightning from as far as

150 to 200 miles away on a dark summer night

.

What is the fastest thing in the universe?

Light

travels about 186,270 miles (more than seven times the circumference of Earth) in one second. In modern physics, light is regarded as the fastest thing in the universe, and its velocity in empty space as a fundamental constant of nature.

What is quicker than the speed of light?

Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity famously dictates that

no known object can travel faster than the speed of light in vacuum

, which is 299,792 km/s.

Is lightning hotter than the sun?

In fact, lightning can heat the air it passes through to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (

5 times hotter than the surface of the sun

). When lightning strikes a tree, the heat vaporizes any water in its path possibly causing the tree to explode or a strip of bark to be blown off.

Are Tachyons real?

A tachyon (/ˈtækiɒn/) or tachyonic particle is a hypothetical particle that always travels faster than light.

Physicists believe that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics

.

Why does the universe have a speed limit?

Since the total amount of energy in the Universe is finite, but the energy required for a massive particle to reach the speed of light is infinite, it can never get there

.

Which is first thunder or lightning?

If we are watching the sky,

we see the lightning before we hear the thunder

. That is because light travels much faster than sound waves. We can estimate the distance of the lightning by counting how many seconds it takes until we hear the thunder.

Why is lightning so loud?

It's because

the amount of electrical energy that flows from the cloud to the ground is so enormous

: it's like a very big waterfall of electricity. The louder the sound that you hear, the closer you are to the lightning. Light travels through air much faster than sound.

Is it safe in a car in lightning?

If you are caught out in thunder and lightning

it is advised that you wind up the windows and stay inside your car

. This is because in the vast majority of cars with a metal roof and frame, the frame will act as a conductive Faraday cage, passing the current around the passengers inside and on to the ground.

Does lightning make noise?

Thunder is the sound caused by lightning

. 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.

Why does thunder sound like a bomb?

What sounded like an explosion, this rare weather phenomenon is actually

caused when the air close to the ground is warm enough to cause a thunderstorm

, while the cold air above produces snow.

Is there anything faster than lightning?

The Big Bang itself expanded much faster than the speed of light

. But this only means that “nothing can go faster than light.” Since nothing is just empty space or vacuum, it can expand faster than light speed since no material object is breaking the light barrier.

How strong is lightning?

A typical lightning flash is

about 300 million Volts and about 30,000 Amps

. In comparison, household current is 120 Volts and 15 Amps.