What is thunder and lightning?

Now we'll talk about what thunder is. This natural phenomenon, as a rule, is observed after lightning. Such phenomena caused an awful sense of fear in our ancestors, they considered them a manifestation of the wrath of the gods. In the time of the ancient Slavs, paganism was widespread. They worshiped different gods, including Perun - the god of thunder, lightning and thunder. He was the chief in the ancient Slavic pantheon. And, like any great deity, Perun devoted a personal holiday. Perun's day was celebrated on July 21. God was revered as giving a life-giving rain for nature. On this day the ancestors praised him, after they consecrated their weapons, they made a sacrifice, held a rite of remembrance of fallen soldiers. The end of the day was a plentiful meal and playfulness.

These times have sunk into oblivion, and thunder and lightning have remained. Look in the specialized reference books or natural science textbooks. There we can read what thunder is - the sound of the vibrating air around the lightning, which quickly heats up and expands. Probably, you have often paid attention to the fact that sometimes we first see an electrical discharge, but only then we hear a roar. It happens because the light waves propagate at a speed of about 300,000 km / s, and the sound waves are much slower, about 335 m / s. But not always thunder and lightning are one during a thunderstorm. It happens that a flash of lightning has occurred, but no sound is heard. This can be if the storm is quite far away. It happens that thunder booms, but lightning is not visible - it will be difficult to see on a clear day and when it forms within a cloud.

If you want to find out how far a thunderstorm is, it will not be difficult. You just need to calculate how many seconds will pass between the flash of the electric discharge and the sound of thunder, divided into three, and you will know how far from you there is a thunderstorm. If you make several similar calculations, you can find out whether the cloud is approaching or moving away from you. In the event that the thunder is not heard, we can say that the storm front is more than twenty kilometers from you.

To understand how the lightning is formed, we should remember the school program - the section on electricity. It is known that all objects are charged either positively or negatively. During a thunderstorm in the cloud, the droplets condense, taking away positively charged particles. The cloud becomes negatively charged relative to the Earth. In the case when the charge in the cloud of rain is too large, lightning strikes. The same phenomenon you can observe when a similar occurs between clouds.

Now let's see what thunder is? During an electric discharge, the air expands very quickly, then contracts, while a rapid movement of air flows occurs. When there is a contact between them, the sound of thunder is heard. The volume of these rolls can reach 120 decibels.

After reading this article, you found out yourself and you will be able to explain to small pochemchikam what is thunder, lightning, how they are formed and why there is a roar.