• Question: What causes thunder?

    Asked by sibuna to Stu, Rob, Maheen, Euan, Deborah on 13 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Deborah Prunty

      Deborah Prunty answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      Thunder is tightly tied to lighting. Clouds rub together and bounce off each other, creating a lot of static. When this static is released we see the flash of the electricity as lighting. Thunder is the sound made by all the air being moved by the pent up energy being released.

    • Photo: Euan Allen

      Euan Allen answered on 19 Jun 2016:

      Hi sibuna, cool question!

      Thunder is caused by lightening. That’s because when lighting strikes from the clouds to the ground, it actually opens up a little gap in the air where it was called a channel. When the lightening has gone, the air rushes back into the hole generating sound waves, which is what we hear.

      As Deborah says, lightening is caused in the first place by static energy building up in the clouds due to them rubbing against each other. This is the same effect as when you rub your hair on a balloon, and it sticks up. This is because as things rub together the free electrons in the material get moved from one object to the other, and cause some static energy.

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