They can occur all year round and at all time, but they happen more often in the spring and summer months, and during the afternoon, evening, and night. This is because thunderstorms. Happen when the air is quite warm and can rise quite quickly. They seldom happen early in the morning when the air is cool.
What is a thunderstorm?
What is thunder and what causes it?
A thunderstorm is a storm with thunder and lightning. There is also usually heavy wind, heavy rain and sometimes hail. Thunderstorms are amazing weather events! They can happen almost anywhere at anytime and can be the beginning of much more dangerous storms like hurricanes and tornadoes.
When do thunderstorms usually happen?
It is a bright flash of electricity. All thunderstorms create lightning and can be very dangerous. Inside a thundercloud, high in the sky, frozen raindrops bump into each other and create electrical charges. When many frozen rain doors hit each other, the whole cloud fills with electrical charges. The positive charges form at the top of the cloud and the negative charges form at the bottom of the cloud. Opposites attract, so positive charges build up on the ground underneath the cloud, and focus on anything that sticks up, such as a person, a tree, or a building. The charge from these points connect with the charge coming down from the clouds and - bang - lightning strikes.
What is lightning and what causes it?
Because light travels faster than sound! We can see lightning bolts as far away as 1600 kilometers. When we compare thunder with lightning, it has a much stronger range. We can usually hear it less than 25 km away in the countryside and under 6 km away in a noisy city center.
Why do we see lightning before we hear thunder?
What is a thunderstorm?
Lightning causes thunder. When lightning travels from the cloud to the ground, it makes a channel, or tube, through the air. Afterwards, when the lightning is gone, the channel collapses and creates a sound wave. This sound is thunder.
