What Causes Lighting And Thunder? How Far Away Is Lightning?

It is the transfer of electric charges from one cloud to other during thunderstorm. Lightning is the visible form of electric discharge at the time of thunderstorm.
Lightning is basically a large electric spark which is caused when electrically charge particles jumped from one cloud to another or they jump from cloud to the earth. It occurs because different positive and negative charged are created between clouds or charges between clouds and ground or they also created during storms in the sea.

When difference between these charges become so great then it result into gigantic flash .whereas on the other hand thunder is caused by sudden heating and expansion of the air by cooling and contraction. It results into the vibration into the air. A loud thunder occurs because the sound from different sources or parts of the electrical discharge reaches the observer at slight different time. The distance between lighting and the observer can be calculated at the time we see the flash and the time we hear the thunder. Because we know that light travels faster then the sound. At first we see the flash of light then we hear the loud sound. It's almost 1.6 kilometers or in other words one mile.

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