Thunder & Lightning

A flash of light followed by a deep rumbling sound is known as lightning. More than one hundred lightning bolts strike the earth every second. The Greeks thought the king of gods, Zeus, threw lightning bolts from the stormy skies.

What creates these brilliant flashes of light during a thunderstorm? Scientists believe that ice particles in the clouds grind together forming an electric charge at the bottom of the cloud. An opposite charge builds up on the ground right below the cloud. One way you can tell there is going to be a thunderstorm is that your hair stands on end because of the electrical charge on the ground.

Little streamers come down from the cloud and up from the ground. If two of these streamers should meet, you get a current of electricity and you have lightning. These little rivers of electricity are brighter than ten million one-hundred watt light bulbs. They travel at a speed of SIXTY MILES PER SECOND! The actual lightening bolt is brief, but one bolt can power a light bulb for about a month. The path of a lightning bolt can reach up to fifty thousand degrees!

Thunder is the deep rumbling sound that occurs after a flash of lightning. The sound is created by the violent explosion of air that has been heated by lightning. The air is heated quickly when the electrical charge of lightning passes through it. This immense heat makes the air molecules expand. As the molecules need more room, they crash into cooler air that creates an air wave. This air wave is the sound of thunder. Thunder has many different sounds, depending on where you are and what the lightning does. It can be crackly, rumbly, or just one large crack might be heard.

Cyclones

Thunder and Lightning