It depends
on how far you are from the lightning. The closer you are, the higher the pitch
of the sound you hear; the farther away you are, the lower the rumble.
First, we
have to remind ourselves of what thunder is.
A stroke of
lightning is extremely fast; it occurs with what might be called lightning
speed. Its sudden heat makes the surrounding air white hot—heated to tens of
thousands of degrees. The air expands at tremendous speed, after which it
rapidly cools and contracts back to its normal temperature and pressure. Air
moving so suddenly makes huge vibrations, and that's what sound waves are:
shudders, or pressure waves, moving through the air. Hence, the noise of
thunder.
It will not
surprise you to learn that thunder travels at the speed of sound. But light
travels almost a million times as fast as sound. Obviously,then, you're going
to see the lightning flash almost instantaneously, but you won't hear the
thunder until it travels from the lightning strike to your ears.
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