Lightning and Thunder

[Cookiely]

I saw lightning this morning but never heard the thunder. It was raining really hard so maybe I just didn't hear it. Can you have lightning without thunder? Is there a table to determine the distance of lightning and thunder. I know I'm not being very precise but maybe someone will understand what I'm trying to say.

[senorpepr]

I saw lightning this morning but never heard the thunder. It was raining really hard so maybe I just didn't hear it. Can you have lightning without thunder? Is there a table to determine the distance of lightning and thunder. I know I'm not being very precise but maybe someone will understand what I'm trying to say.

First, if you have lightning, you must have thundred. What type of lightning was it? Cloud-to-ground? Cloud-to-cloud? Cloud-to-air? In-cloud? If the cloud was at altitude, that will decrease the sound with distance. Also, the heavy rain should have help "dampen" the sound. Either way, it sounds like the bolt was at somewhat of a distance.

Second, you asked about a table to determine the distance. Well, here's some early-morning math: Light travels MUCH faster than sound. (Light is 186,291 mi/sec; Sound is 1,088 ft/sec or 0.206 mi/sec). The best rule of thumb is to count the seconds after you see the lightning bolt. For every five seconds between the lightning and the thunder, that equals roughly one mile.

I hope this helps.

[wxmann_91]

I saw lightning this morning but never heard the thunder. It was raining really hard so maybe I just didn't hear it. Can you have lightning without thunder? Is there a table to determine the distance of lightning and thunder. I know I'm not being very precise but maybe someone will understand what I'm trying to say.

It's like the question of it a tree falls in the forest where nobody lives, is there a sound thing (something like that). There's always thunder but many times we can't here it. Here in socal what little lightning we get is 75% of the time not followed by thunder.

[Aslkahuna]

The distance at which thunder can be heard depends upon a number of factors so there's no hard and fast limit. Here we can hear thunder from lightning well over 10 miles away but in a city or with heavy rain the distance may be less.

Steve

[brunota2003]

wxmann...you mean "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" here is one for you non forest people..."If a locker slams in a school hallway, yet no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" Here you can see the lightning off in the distance and even see a weak bolt...yet hear no thunder (or maybe its those aliens from "War of the Worlds" remember when that lightning hit there was no thunder? )

[Cookiely]

It was cloud to cloud lightning. Thanks for the equation on distance. Remember the movie Poltergeist where the father tells the son to count after the lightning and you can tell if the storm is getting closer or farther away. When I saw the lightning I started counting and got to sixty and never heard the thunder and thought wow that's far away, but as I said it was raining cats and dogs and trees and limbs were coming down so maybe I didn't hear it.