• Question: What causes thunder?

    Asked by yooda to Bob, Katie, Nisha, Sallie, Vee on 27 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Vee Mitchell

      Vee Mitchell answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      It’s caused by the sudden expansion of air as a result of the heat of the lightning. They can appear to not be connected as light travels much faster than sound so you’ll see the lightening before you hear the thunder.

    • Photo: Sallie Baxendale

      Sallie Baxendale answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      THunder and lightening are the same thing – we just hear thunder after lightening because sound travels much more slowly than light. Lightening is the discharge of electricty in a cloud – either to another cloud or to the ground. At any given moment, there are approximately 1,800 thunderstorms occurring over the Earth. It is estimated that 100 lightning flashes occur each second somewhere on the Earth, adding up to nearly 8 million lightning flashes per day. During your lifetime, you have a one in 600,000 chance of being struck by lightning.

    • Photo: Bob Bonwick

      Bob Bonwick answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Yup, like Vee said.

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