About 50 people a year are killed by lightning strikes. I happen to work with a guy who has been struck three times! If your reaction to that was, “that’s ridiculously impossible,” you’ll understand why I made him tell me all three stories. At the end of those stories, all I could do was shake my head and ask him to buy me a lottery ticket.
As a kid, I remember my brothers and I took refuge under a tree as a thunderstorm came up. My Dad’s face is still in my memory as he chased us into the house and scolded us about the dangers of that. Then, to drive the point home even more, there was later a photo in the NY Times of a bunch of dead cattle under a tree somewhere. Nonetheless, what kid doesn’t hate being chased out of a swimming pool at the first rumble of thunder and not allowed back in for 15 minutes after the last one? As an adult, I have a much healthier respect (or fear) for lightning. A rumble occurs while the sun is shining bright and I’m the goody-goody who starts packing up to go. I don’t do the ‘wait and see’ thing.
Tonight there was a dry thunderstorm over my house for about 30 minutes – all thunder, no rain. I enjoyed it. The rumbling is neat to listen to. It’s different than the fast-moving storms with the cracks of lightning that make you look outside to see if all your trees are still standing. My Mom told us thunder was a giant falling out of bed. In retrospect, it seems a little risky to plant the idea in young minds that there are giants in the sky. Maybe you heard one of these more reassuring explanations: clouds bumping into each other; God rearranging his furniture; clouds clapping or God bowling.
This is what really causes thunder: In a fraction of a second, lightning heats the air around it to incredible temperatures—as hot as 54,000 °F (5 times hotter than the surface of the Sun). The heated air expands explosively, creating a shockwave as the surrounding air is rapidly compressed. The air then contracts rapidly as it cools. That creates the initial CRACK sound, followed by rumbles as the column of air continues to vibrate.
As a kid, I remember my brothers and I took refuge under a tree as a thunderstorm came up. My Dad’s face is still in my memory as he chased us into the house and scolded us about the dangers of that. Then, to drive the point home even more, there was later a photo in the NY Times of a bunch of dead cattle under a tree somewhere. Nonetheless, what kid doesn’t hate being chased out of a swimming pool at the first rumble of thunder and not allowed back in for 15 minutes after the last one? As an adult, I have a much healthier respect (or fear) for lightning. A rumble occurs while the sun is shining bright and I’m the goody-goody who starts packing up to go. I don’t do the ‘wait and see’ thing.
Tonight there was a dry thunderstorm over my house for about 30 minutes – all thunder, no rain. I enjoyed it. The rumbling is neat to listen to. It’s different than the fast-moving storms with the cracks of lightning that make you look outside to see if all your trees are still standing. My Mom told us thunder was a giant falling out of bed. In retrospect, it seems a little risky to plant the idea in young minds that there are giants in the sky. Maybe you heard one of these more reassuring explanations: clouds bumping into each other; God rearranging his furniture; clouds clapping or God bowling.
This is what really causes thunder: In a fraction of a second, lightning heats the air around it to incredible temperatures—as hot as 54,000 °F (5 times hotter than the surface of the Sun). The heated air expands explosively, creating a shockwave as the surrounding air is rapidly compressed. The air then contracts rapidly as it cools. That creates the initial CRACK sound, followed by rumbles as the column of air continues to vibrate.