ITS 19.02, THURSDAY 21/10/04 AND IM IN SHEFFIELD .AM I HEARING A THUNDER STORM BREWING??????

it's only just turned 19:02 now, and yeah to other..

A flash.. Then a loud noise rolls through the sky.. Im stumped as to what it could be :suspect:

WOOOOOOO! I love storms and this appears to be another beasty!

its a distant storm.....not sure if its on its way here or will pass around.....sounded very bad but at least 20 miles off at the moment

over manchester it is!!

or somewhere 30 miles odd away.

im getting reaaly bored of living on a hill and having no thunderstorms!!!

the last one we had was good for 20min then died and this one didnt even touch us!!

GRRR I HATE WEATHER!!!

if its gonnna be cold at least it could SNOW and let us have a day/week/month (realms of fantasy kicked in there)

and if its gonna rain WHY NOT THUNDER TOO?????

GRRR :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant: :rant:

Owt to get outta School eh Fletch :P

It was like a horror film driving home from work in Manchester. Really really dark, torrential rain, lightning streaking across the sky over the pennines. And to top it all off, the power looked to be out in Hope, Bamford and all the way down to Ladybower. No lights on at all, no streetlights, traffic lights not working.

Half expected my car to break down and have to knock on the door of some huge old mansion.....

I know there's some dead clever people on here, so here's my question....

When I was younger, you used to count the seconds between the lightning flash and the thunder, and however many seconds it was, was how many miles away the storm was.

I now think this may have been rubbish!!!

So, is there anyone that knows the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound, and how many seconds you would have to count to equate a mile??

And just tell me if I'm a boring loser for wanting to know. In fact, don't please...

Apparently it takes 12 minuites for light from the sun to reach Earth!.

For the answer to your question you will have to wait for Martin_s!. This guy knows everything!:suspect:

This is rather inconsequential with regards to the original question, but it does in fact take light approximately EIGHT minutes to reach the Earth from the sun.

I am in no position to argue the point but as i said earlier the resident expert will be along in the next day or so to set us straight. Sorry to put pressure on you M!.

the speed of light is about 300,000,000 m/s, the speed of sound is about 343 m/s, i think... lightning causes thunder, it heats up the air to 30,000 celsius, causing the air to expand explosively and thunder is the shockwave from that explosion, also it happens at the same time, but we hear sound later as it travels alot slower, also bounces off the air molecules, so a rumbling thunder is further away, and a crack or boom type means the lightning bolt was nearer, i think...

Originally posted by island3rlara
the speed of light is about 300,000,000 m/s, the speed of sound is about 343 m/s, i think... lightning causes thunder, it heats up the air to 30,000 celsius, causing the air to expand explosively and thunder is the shockwave from that explosion, also it happens at the same time, but we hear sound later as it travels alot slower, also bounces off the air molecules, so a rumbling thunder is further away, and a crack or boom type means the lightning bolt was nearer, i think...
Wicked! :thumbsup:

Originally posted by island3rlara
the speed of light is about 300,000,000 m/s, the speed of sound is about 343 m/s, i think... lightning causes thunder, it heats up the air to 30,000 celsius, causing the air to expand explosively and thunder is the shockwave from that explosion, also it happens at the same time, but we hear sound later as it travels alot slower, also bounces off the air molecules, so a rumbling thunder is further away, and a crack or boom type means the lightning bolt was nearer, i think...

Oooh I'm very impressed, all this knowledge at such a late hour! However, I'm still no wiser as to how to gauge how far away the storm is..... is it 1 second per mile, 'cos I'm doubting that....

Martin'll know though, by all accounts.....?

See here : http://www.fema.gov/kids/thunder.htm


"Divide the number of seconds by five to get the distance in miles"

Lots of links and a quiz and more available from the link posted above

TTFN

Rudi

Originally posted by BoroughGal
Oooh I'm very impressed, all this knowledge at such a late hour! However, I'm still no wiser as to how to gauge how far away the storm is..... is it 1 second per mile, 'cos I'm doubting that....

Martin'll know though, by all accounts.....?

Count the number of seconds between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder, divide by 5 to get the number of miles.

For every 5 seconds the storm is one mile away.

i was referring to metres, to calculate the distance lightning is away from u then is about 370 m/s (metres per second) from the thunder soudnwaves reaching u, i heard it approx. 1-2 mins after flash otha day hence about 18-30 miles so could be seen / heard far as manchester maybe

Thanks for that....! It's bugged me for ages!