How Far Away Is Lightning? (2024)

FAQs

How Far Away Is Lightning? ›

If you count the number of seconds between the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder, and then divide by 5, you'll get the distance in miles to the lightning: 5 seconds = 1 mile, 15 seconds = 3 miles, 0 seconds = very close. Keep in mind that you should be in a safe place while counting.

When you see the flash of a lightning bolt, you can start counting seconds and then divide to see how far away the lightning struck. If it takes 10 seconds for the thunder to roll in, the lightning struck about 2 miles or 3 kilometers away.

THE ANSWER: No, counting seconds between lightning and thunder to calculate the miles for every second is inaccurate. Instead, you must divide by five to know how close it is.

If you can't hear thunder, that usually means you're more than 6 to 10 miles from a thunderstorm; and that's the typical maximum distance lightning can strike to the side. For more information on thunderstorm safety, check out my book "Lightning Strikes", by Mountaineers Books.

The flash of light from lightning travels at about 300,000 kilometers per second or 186,000 miles per second.

For metric-system conversions, follow this method: Sound travels at about 340 m/s, so multiply the number of seconds you counted by 340, and you'll know how many meters away lightning struck. A three-second count, then, would place the lightning strike about 1,020 m away, or roughly 1 km.

When You See Lightning, Count The Time Until You Hear Thunder. If That Is 30 Seconds Or Less, The Thunderstorm Is Close Enough To Be Dangerous – Seek Shelter (if you can't see the lightning, just hearing the thunder is a good back-up rule). Wait 30 Minutes Or More After The Lightning Flash Before Leaving Shelter.

Safe shelters include homes, offices, shopping centers, and hard-top vehicles with the windows rolled up. Seek shelter immediately, even if caught out in the open. If you are caught in an open area, act quickly to find shelter.

Lightning has the ability to strike a house or near a house and impart an electrical charge to the metal pipes used for plumbing. Over 1,000 people get struck by lightning every year in the United States, and over 100 of them die as a result of the strike.

Most indoor lightning casualties and some outdoor casualties are due to conduction. Whether inside or outside, anyone in contact with anything connected to metal wires, plumbing, or metal surfaces that extend outside is at risk.

Why is there no thunder after lightning? ›

Thunder starts as a shockwave from the explosively expanding lightning channel when a large current causes rapid heating. However, it is possible that you might see lightning and not hear the thunder because it was too far away. Sometimes this is called “heat lightning” because it occurs most often in the summer.

A person on the ground sees the lightning flash before hearing the thunder because light at a speed of around 300,000,000 meters per second travels much faster than sound which moves at 340 meters per second.

The speed of sound through the atmosphere is a constant that depends on the daily temperature. On a standard day at sea level static conditions, the speed of sound is about 760 mph, or 1100 feet/second. We can use this knowledge to approximately determine how far away a lightning strike has occurred.

The temperature of the air in the lightning channel may reach as high as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun. Immediately after the flash, the air cools and contracts quickly. This rapid expansion and contraction creates the sound wave that we hear as thunder.

The odds that one will be struck by lightning in the U.S. during one's lifetime are 1 in 15,300. On average, 270 people in the U.S. are struck per year, and only about 10 percent of that number die from the event. Around the world, approximately 2,000 people are struck by lightning every year.

If you count the number of seconds between the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder, and then divide by 5, you'll get the distance in miles to the lightning: 5 seconds = 1 mile, 15 seconds = 3 miles, 0 seconds = very close. Keep in mind that you should be in a safe place while counting.

Simply count the number of seconds between the flash and the sound of thunder and divide by 5 to get the distance in miles. So, 1 second = less than a mile (a fifth of a mile), 5 seconds = 1 mile, 20 seconds = 4 miles, etc. This technique is known as the “flash-to-bang” method.

Light travels at a constant 186,000 miles/second, which means that we see the flash immediately as it happens. The intense heat of the lightning generates a sound called thunder which is transmitted through the air at the speed of sound.