You Ask, We Answer: Why Do Some Storms Produce Loud Thunder ...

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(WQOW) - In this weather edition You Ask, We Answer, Burt wants to know why some storms are so loud, and other times it's like a silent strobe light.

There can never be lightning without the sound of thunder. When you see lightning but you don't hear thunder it is often referred to as "heat lightning."

Many people think this is some special kind of lightning, but simply you're just too far away from the lightning strike to hear the thunder. 

The speed of light is much faster and can travel much farther than the speed of sound. Lightning can be seen from 150 to 200 miles away on a clear, dark summer night as a storm approaches.

Meanwhile, thunder can only be heard up to just 10 miles away. Rain, or in the rare occasion snow can also muffle the sound.

Lightning occurs when positive and negative charges within the clouds, or between the clouds and the ground, create an electric channel. When the channel connects the lightning bolt discharges, the air around the channel heats and expands rapidly, then you see a flash. After the flash, the air cools and contracts rapidly.

This expansion and contraction creates the sound wave we hear, known as thunder. That sound wave will follow the same channel that the lightning went through.

While lightning typically strikes one spot, it travels a long way through the air. When you hear a loud crack or clicking sound it means the lightning channel passed close by.

When it sounds like rumbles in the distance, you're hearing the thunder roll trough the lightning channel.

Those loud booms happen when the main channel of lightning connects with the ground close by.

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