Do you know what thunder and lightning is? Have you ever got frightened by the thunder sound? Do you know that you should follow specific tips during lightning times in order to stay safe and protect yourself? In this lesson, you are going to learn all about thunder and lightning as well as some safety tips to follow during lightning times. Let’s learn!
Lightning is a bright flash of electricity that appears in the sky during a thunderstorm. Thunder is the loud sound that is caused by the lightning.
A thunderstorm is a storm that makes strong winds, heavy rain, lightning and thunder. A thunderstorm is produced by cumulonimbus clouds. The word “cumulonimbus” is Latin, and it is divided into two parts: “cumulus” which means pile, and “nimbus” which means rain cloud. Cumulonimbus clouds are a type of clouds that are large, tall and dark on the bottom. They form on hot days when warm, moist air rises high in the sky. These clouds usually produce gusty winds and rain.
A thunderstorm occurs when the air is unstable because of the collision between warm air and cold air. Warm air is lighter than cold air. On hot days, warm air rises up quickly and clashes with the cold air that is found high in the sky causing a thunderstorm.
They are small, weak storms usually found in spring and summer. They form, grow and die within an hour or so. Single-Cell thunderstorms can bring brief heavy rain, hail and sometimes lightning.
A multi-cell thunderstorm is the combination of multiple single-cell storms. It can bring hail and gusty winds, but it often leads to flash flooding.
A squall line is a line of thunderstorms along with squalls of heavy rain and high wind. They are often so long, sometimes hundreds of miles long, but only 10 or 20 miles wide. They often pass quickly, and they occasionally produce tornadoes. Squall line thunderstorms can also cause lightning and tornadoes to occur.
Supercell thunderstorms are the largest and the most dangerous type of thunderstorms. They are strong thunderstorms with a rotating updraft (an upward current of air). These thunderstorms usually produce tornadoes, and they can also produce large hail, damaging winds, and flash flooding.
A cloud contains water droplets and ice particles. Those droplets and particles carry electrical charges, some are positive charges and others are negative. When too many negative charges collect in a cloud, positive charges form under the cloud on the ground in order to balance the negative ones.
Scientifically, opposite charges attract. So, those negative charges in the cloud attract to the positive ones on the ground. However, electricity does not move easily through air, so it is difficult for the charges to band together.
The charges get stronger as the cloud grows. Eventually, the charges get stronger than the air, and the cloud releases a strong electrical current with a negative charge. As this negatively charged current heads towards the ground, a positively charged current jumps from the ground to meet it. When the two currents unite, they produce a bright flash that heads back up towards the cloud. This is the lightning flash.
The loud booming sound that is heard after lightning is the thunder. The electricity from the lightning makes the air very hot. When the air is suddenly heated, it expands very quickly and violently making a loud noise, which is thunder.
There are three primary types of lightning according to the starting and ending points of the flash. Lightning can be “intracloud”, “cloud to cloud”, or “cloud to ground”. It also has two types according to how it appears. Lightning is either a “sheet lightning” or a “fork lightning”.
The most common type of lightning. Intracloud lightning occurs completely inside a single cloud. The opposite charges in the cloud unite and cause lightning. Intracloud lightning is sheet lightning, because it lights up the sky with a sheet of light instead of a thunderbolt.
It is also called “intercloud lightning”. This type of lightning starts and ends between positive and negative charges within two or more different clouds. Here, the lightning strike travels in the air between the clouds. Cloud to cloud lightning produces a thunderbolt, so it is considered fork lightning.
It is the lightning that starts in a cloud and ends on the ground or vice versa. It occurs when currents from a cloud unite with currents from the ground. Cloud to ground lightning produces a thunderbolt, so it is considered a fork lightning.
The reason we see the lightning flash before we can hear thunder is because light travels faster than sound. Lightning is so bright that it can be seen from far distances, but thunder cannot always be heard from far away. In fact, you may sometimes see lightning and do not even hear thunder; in this case, the lightning is pretty far away from where you are. If lightning is very near, thunder will be heard soon after the lightning flash, and its sound will be very loud. If the lightning is farther away, the thunder will be heard a few seconds after the lightning.
The lightning flash can be seen from as far as 100 miles, depending on its height and the clarity of the air. On the other hand, thunder is usually heard from less than 15 miles or even less than 5 miles in a noisy city.
You can estimate how far away the lightning strike is from you by counting the number of seconds that pass between lightning and its thunder sound. Divide the number of seconds by five, the result is approximately how many miles the lightning is far from where you are. For example, if 10 seconds passes between the lightning and the thunder, then the lightning strike is around 2 miles away.
Lightning can strike as far away as 10 miles from the centre of a thunderstorm. So, if the time delay between lightning and thunder is short, and the distance to the lightning is 6 miles or less, then consider finding shelter.
Thunder may sound really scary, but it does not commonly hurt living creatures. On the contrary, lightning can kill people or cause damage when it strikes.
Lightning can also be beneficial. The heat from lightning joins the nitrogen and oxygen in the air, and they together form nitrates and other compounds. When it rains, these nutrients fall to the Earth and nourish the soil, which helps plants grow.
It is important that you know the signs of a thunderstorm so that you can seek shelter and keep safe when there is one. Here are some warning signs of a thunderstorm:
If you are outside during a thunderstorm, these tips will help you keep as safe as possible:
If you are indoors during a thunderstorm, follow these tips for safety:
It was one of the deadliest lightning strikes that has ever happened. In the town of Brescia, Italy, a church called the Church of St. Nazaire was used to store gunpowder. Lightning struck the church directly one day in 1769, and all the gunpowder (around 90,000 kg) caught on fire and exploded. The explosion killed around 3,000 people and destroyed a sixth of the city.
On 2 November 1994, a deadly incident happened in Dronka, Asyut Governorate, Egypt. A lightning strike caused fuel tanks belonging to the Egyptian Army strategic reserve to explode. Around 15,000 tonnes of oil leaked from the tanks and mixed with floodwaters. The floodwaters and the oil wiped the village, destroying more than 200 houses and killing 469 people.
In 1971, Flight 508 from Lima to Pucallpa in Peru crashed into the Amazon rainforest after a lightning strike ignited a fuel tank. All 91 people aboard were killed. The only person who survived was a 17-year-old girl called Juliane Koepcke. She fell 2 miles (3.2 km) down into the Amazon rainforest strapped to her seat. She then walked through the jungle for 10 days until she was rescued by local timber men.
In 1963, A Pan Am flight was struck by lightning when it was about to land in Philadelphia. A part of the wing tore off, and the fuel tank ignited. This accident resulted in the death of all 81 passengers and crew on board.
In October 2005, a single lightning bolt killed 68 cows on a farm in New South Wales, Australia. The cows were grouped together to be milked when they were struck by lightning.
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