Why does thunder always come slower than lightning when it rains?

Thunder and lightning is a majestic and somewhat intimidating natural phenomenon accompanied by lightning and thunder. Thunder and lightning are generally generated in cumulonimbus clouds with strong convection, so they are often accompanied by strong gusts of wind and heavy rain, sometimes hail and tornadoes. The top of the cumulonimbus cloud is generally high, up to 20 km, and the upper part of the cloud often has ice crystals.

Processes such as the attachment of ice crystals, the breaking of water droplets, and the convection of air cause electric charges to be generated in the clouds. The distribution of charges in the cloud is more complex, but in general, the upper part of the cloud is dominated by positive charges and the lower part is dominated by negative charges. As a result, a potential difference is formed between the upper and lower parts of the cloud.

When the potential difference reaches a certain level, an electric discharge will be generated, which is our common lightning phenomenon. The average current of lightning is 30,000 amps, and the maximum current can reach 300,000 amps. The voltage of lightning is high, about 100 million to 1 billion volts.

A moderate thunderstorm can reach 10 million watts, which is equivalent to the output of a small nuclear power plant. During the discharge, due to the sudden increase in temperature in the flash channel, the volume of air expands sharply, resulting in a shock wave that causes a strong thunderclap. Storm clouds usually produce electric charges, with yin electricity at the bottom and yang electricity at the top, and also a positive charge on the ground, which follows the clouds like a shadow.

The yang and yin charges attract each other, but air is not a good conductor. Yang electricity rushes to the tops of trees, hills, tall buildings, and even the human body, trying to meet the clouds with yin electricity; The catacles of the cathode branch extend downward, and the further down they reach, the closer they get to the ground. Finally, the yin and yang charges finally overcame the barrier of air and connected.

A huge electric current surged from the ground to the clouds along a conductive airway, producing a bright and dazzling flash. The length of a lightning bolt may be only a few hundred kilometers, but it can be several thousand meters long. The temperature of lightning varies from 17,000 degrees Celsius to 28,000 degrees Celsius, which is equal to 3.5 times the surface temperature of the sun.

The extreme heat of the lightning caused the air to expand violently along its path. The air moves quickly, so waves are formed and sound is made. The lightning was so close that all you heard was a sharp crackling sound; If it's a long distance, it's a rumble that is heard.

You can turn on the stopwatch when you see lightning, stop it when you hear thunder, and divide it by 3 to get a sense of how many meters away you are. In order to prevent electric shock, it is generally not possible to hide from the rain under trees.

Lightning produces thunder, which travels at the same time in the same place, and because the speed of light greatly exceeds the speed of sound, thunder is not heard until a few seconds after seeing lightning.

1. Because this is a natural phenomenon, the phenomenon of lightning. Thunder and lightning is a majestic and somewhat intimidating electrical discharge accompanied by lightning and thunder, which occurs when there is an accumulation and polarity in the thunderstorm clouds.

2. Thunderstorm clouds consist of a large churning, fluctuating mass of water, ice crystals, and air. When the ice crystals in the cloud roll up and down in a strong air current, the moisture will condense on the surface of the ice crystals into layers of ice, forming hailstones. These ice crystals and water droplets, which were repeatedly torn and impacted by strong air currents, were filled with static electricity.

3. Among them, the lighter weight and positively charged ones are piled up above the clouds; The heavier, negatively charged ones gather at the bottom of the clouds. As for the ground, it is positively charged by the induction of a large amount of negative electricity at the bottom of the clouds. When there is a great difference between the positive and negative charges, the energy is released in the form of lightning.

Thunder and lightning are a terrifying and majestic natural phenomenon accompanied by lightning and thunder. People usually refer to thunderstorms, but sometimes there is a phenomenon of thunder and lightning but not necessarily rain, so the term thunder and lightning is more accurate than thunderstorms. In the past, people could neither explain this phenomenon, let alone fight it, but thunder and lightning were worshipped as gods.

Since Franklin's famous kite experiment in the 18th century, people have been committed to the research and practice of lightning and its protection for 200 years, and great achievements have been made in the protection of lightning and accumulated rich experience.

People usually call the clouds where lightning occurs thunderstorm clouds, in fact, there are several kinds of clouds that are related to lightning, such as stratocumulus clouds, Nimbostratus clouds, cumulonimbus clouds, cumulonimbus clouds, and the most important thing is cumulonimbus clouds.

The formation of clouds is the process of condensation of water vapor in the air to a saturated or supersaturated state for various reasons. Saturation of water vapour in the air is a necessary condition for the formation of clouds, and the main ways of this are:

1) The water vapor content remains unchanged, and the air is cooled and cooled;

2) The temperature remains unchanged and the water vapor content increases;

3) It not only increases the water vapor content, but also lowers the temperature.

But for cloud formation, the cooling process is the most important process. In the process of cooling, the cooling effect caused by the upward movement is the most common.

A cumulonimbus cloud is a type of cloud that forms during a strong vertical convection. Because the ground absorbs much more radiant heat from the sun than the air layer, so the ground temperature rises more during the day, and this warming is more obvious in summer, so the temperature of the atmosphere near the ground also rises due to heat conduction and heat radiation, and the gas temperature will inevitably expand, the density will decrease, and the pressure will also decrease, according to the principle of mechanics, it will rise, and the density of the air layer above will be relatively large, and it will sink. During the uplift, the hot air expands and lowers the pressure, and at the same time exchanges heat with the high-altitude and low-temperature air, so the water vapor in the rising air mass condenses and fog droplets appear, forming clouds.

During strong convection, the fog droplets in the clouds further cool down and become supercooled water droplets, ice crystals, or snowflakes, which gradually increase with altitude. At the freezing altitude (-10 degrees Celsius), the release of latent heat due to the massive freezing of supercooled water causes the cloud top to suddenly develop upwards and spread horizontally near the tropopause to form anvils, which is a distinctive feature of cumulonimbus clouds.

During the formation of cumulonimbus clouds, positive and negative charges accumulate in different parts of the cloud under the simultaneous action of the atmospheric electric field, the electrostatic effect of temperature difference and the electroelectric effect of fragmentation. When the charge accumulates to a certain extent, it will discharge between clouds or between clouds and ground, which is commonly referred to as this"Lightning"。

Thunder and lightning have brought tragic disasters to human society with their huge destructive power, especially in recent years, lightning disasters have occurred frequently, and the harm caused to the national economy has become increasingly serious. We should strengthen our awareness of lightning protection, actively cooperate with meteorological departments, do a good job in prevention, and reduce the losses caused by lightning damage to a minimum.

Thunder and lightning are the phenomenon of electrical discharge in thunderstorm clouds. There are certain conditions for the formation of thunderstorm clouds, that is, there must be sufficient water vapor in the air, there must be a power to make the moist air rise, and the air must be able to produce violent convective movements. In spring and summer, due to the influence of the warm and humid airflow from the south, the air is humid, and at the same time, the solar radiation is strong, the air near the ground is constantly heated and rises, and the cold air in the upper layer sinks, which is easy to form strong convection, so there are many thunderstorms and even hail.

In winter, due to the control of the continental cold air mass, the air is cold and dry, and the solar radiation is weak, the air is not easy to form violent convection, so thundershowers rarely occur. However, sometimes the weather is warm in winter, and the warm and humid air is stronger, and when the strong cold air in the north occasionally goes south, the warm and humid air is forced to rise, and the convection intensifies, thundershowers will be formed, and the so-called "thunder winter" phenomenon appears. Meteorologists also say that the generation of thunderstorms does not depend on the temperature itself, but on the distribution of the temperature up and down.

In other words, although the temperature is not high in winter, if the temperature difference between the upper and lower reaches a certain value, strong convection can also be formed, resulting in thunderstorms. Winter thunder is rare in China, but it often occurs in the winter in Toronto, Canada When the air is extremely unstable, it is easy to have a strong upward convective movement, and the formation of towering cumulonimbus clouds, the clouds are filled with water vapor running up and down, static electricity will be generated, the upper end of the cloud will produce a positive charge, the lower end of the cloud will produce a negative charge, and the ground is a positive charge, then, there is air as an insulator between the positive and negative charges, if the voltage difference between the positive and negative charges is large enough to break through the air of the insulator, so that the air expands in an instant** , heat and glow, glow is lightning, expansion ** makes a huge sound is thunder.