• Question: how does thunder occur?

    Asked by chloewildman to Chris, Eva, Michael, Paddy, Philip on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Michael Wharmby

      Michael Wharmby answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Friction. Water particles in the clouds rub past one another and build up static electricity. When you pull your jumper off you too build up static electricity and you can hear it clicking as you pull the jumper. Thunder is a *much* bigger version of that clicking – the electricity discharging to the ground (so you can’t have thunder without lightning). Nice question!

    • Photo: Paddy Brock

      Paddy Brock answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      And nice answer! Good to know

    • Photo: Chris Jordan

      Chris Jordan answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Yes, Michaels’ got that one.
      And to add some more info – the way of telling how far away the thunder is, is a good scientific approximation You count the time between seeing the flash and hearing the thunder. I was taught about 1 mile for every second, but in fact it’s nearer a kilometer per 3 secs counted

      This is because light travels very fast – for a few miles, you can think of it as instantaneous – sound goes more slowly (aeroplanes can break the sound barrier – ie go faster than the sound that they;’re making) at about 1200km/hr. So the sound takes around 3 secs to go a km

    • Photo: Philip Denniff

      Philip Denniff answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Thank you Chris so all those thunder storms were a lot closser that I thought they were.

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