Have You Ever Heard What Lightning TRULY Sounds Like

[WillJ]

Originally posted by cgannon64

Originally posted by EdwardTking
The sound of Lightning is called "Thunder".

Yes, but that is terribly distorted. Lightning, up close, sounds like a gigantic whip.

No, that's still thunder. That's what thunder sounds like when you're up close. The reason is that the extreme heat of the lightning causes the surrounding air to expand, which makes a loud whipping sound, and if you're in that air, the sensation and sound can be pretty amazing. Then the sound of this expanding air travels outward, and of course from farther and farther away the "sensation" lessens.

Edit: Oh, and yep, this happened to me twice, I think. Once I was outside running for shelter, and another time I was inside.

 

[Archer 007]

Struct in uncle's yard once. He lives about a 1/10 away from me. Fell though his house too.

 

[Drewcifer]

One of the joys of living on the top of a hill in the Midwest is that I get to experince this several times a year. With the stronger bolts of lightning you feel the concussion as much as you hear it. The most intense I've experienced was when a thunderstorm with 80 mile per hour winds came through the neighborhood. The lightning that came with it sounded like we were under an artillery attack with near-by strikes every three to five seconds. Thank goodness there is a tall building a block away.

As soon as the storm passed they blew the tornado sirens.

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by WillJ
Yes, but that is terribly distorted. Lightning, up close, sounds like a gigantic whip.

No, that's still thunder. That's what thunder sounds like when you're up close. The reason is that the extreme heat of the lightning causes the surrounding air to expand, which makes a loud whipping sound, and if you're in that air, the sensation and sound can be pretty amazing. Then the sound of this expanding air travels outward, and of course from farther and farther away the "sensation" lessens.

Smartass. J/K. Anyway, I would say that thunder upclose and far away are so radically different that they don't deserve to be in the same word.

 

[WillJ]

Originally posted by cgannon64
Smartass.

That's me!

Originally posted by cgannon64
Anyway, I would say that thunder upclose and far away are so radically different that they don't deserve to be in the same word.

Both an old AMD Athlon and an Apple G5 are computers, aren't they?

 

[Scratcher]

About two years ago I was working in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and had an appartment (on the 22nd floor) in the centre of the city. From the balcony I could see the Petronas Twin towers which was no more than 1km away and across the street was the Menara Tower, which due to being built on a hill, actually looks down on the Twin Towers. Almost daily thunderstorms build up in the afternoons and many times I would sit on the balcony having a beer and watch quite an amazing lightning display.

 

[Perfection]

It happens to me almost every storm, I honestly don't see what the big deal is.

Perhaps it's because I live in the midwest on top of a hill, with a large metal lighting rod on the roof directly over my bed

 

[Drewcifer]

Originally posted by Perfection
It happens to me almost every storm, I honestly don't see what the big deal is.

Much of the world doesn't get real thunderstorms very often, they don't know what they are missing.

 

[col]

I've been in the top of a mountain in Scotland during a thunderstorm - lying flat on he ground in the open! A lightning strike hit the ground about 20 yds away. It made a cccrrrrrrrrrrrrrrack sound. Terrifying. Fortunately it shot along the ground away from us hissing like a snake. When we investigated later we found that there was a trench about 12 inches deep and 100 yds long. The ground had been perfectly unzipped.

I still find lightning fascinating and love to watch storms - from rather larger a distance.

 

[Perfection]

Storms are mostly annoying for me, the TV is flashing with meaningless weather alerts, it's loud and you can't sleep, and it blows branches/leaves/patio furniture into the pool, that I get to clean up. Every three of years or so it strikes a tree, and we have clean it up. I've been about 3 yards away from lighting once, at that distance I could feel it's heat.

So for me thunderstorms are mostly annoying and somewhat dangerous, if your stupid enough to go out and retrive your bike during it.

 

[Drewcifer]

Originally posted by Perfection
the TV is flashing with meaningless weather alerts

A tornado warning is not meaningless for those who are in its path. I agree that the other ones don't really matter very much unless they involve very high winds or huge hailstones.

 

[Pongui]

Originally posted by Drewcifer
Much of the world doesn't get real thunderstorms very often, they don't know what they are missing.

I feel cheated!

 

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Drewcifer
A tornado warning is not meaningless for those who are in its path. I agree that the other ones don't really matter very much unless they involve very high winds or huge hailstones.

Exactly, so why interupt, valuable Conan or Sienfeld by saying, "Were issuing the kinda cloudy warning for these countie"

 

[Civrules]

Yes, I know what it sounds like. There was a nasty thunderstorm and it was about 11:50 pm and a lightning struck right outside my home. It sounded like a huge slap in the face. I almost jumped out of my bed.

 

[Serutan]

Originally posted by Perfection
Exactly, so why interupt, valuable Conan or Sienfeld by saying, "Were issuing the kinda cloudy warning for these countie"

Partially because once in 1995 they decided not to issue a
warning, but the tornado showed up anyway and trashed a town
in Wisconsin, with a lot of unnecessary deaths.

 

[WillJ]

Originally posted by Serutan
Partially because once in 1995 they decided not to issue a
warning, but the tornado showed up anyway and trashed a town
in Wisconsin, with a lot of unnecessary deaths.

That's a tornado warning, not a thunderstorm warning. Although I don't think they interrrupt programs for thunderstorm warnings anyway; they just have that little thing at the bottom of the screen.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

I had lightning stick a power pole transformer about 10 ft to the right and 15 up.

 

[allan2]

Originally posted by Zarn
Some lightning struck in front of me (a few weeks ago), but it was a safe distance away. It was definately blinding. I said something religous

Like, "holy sh*t"?

 

[Gothmog]

Where I live we get isolated thunderstorms, especially in the summer (all this week in fact). I love to watch the lightning on my commute home from work. It's also great when your outside, on an 85 degree day, and suddenly it starts to hail!

Last summer a bolt hit a tree in my cul de sac while I was out pruning the garden, it was so loud that my ears were buzzing for a couple minutes. There was no wind at the time and I could smell the ozone in the air.

Personally I love thunderstorms.