Activity For Children And Adults: Distance Of Lightning Via Arithmetic

There is no need for thunderstorms to ruin a family evening together

. As a matter of truth, a good thunderstorm is the perfect chance for an educational and fun task that all members of the familty can become part in.

The luminosity that is returned from a bolt of lightning arrives at your eyes almost simultaneously.But you will systematically hear the thunder after you see lightning since the velocity of light is larger than the rate of sound. The velocity of sound at 770 miles/hour is much slower than the mind boggling 186,000 miles per second velocity of light. At this velocity, sound will travel a mile in more or less 5 seconds. By making use of this data, we can easily check roughly how far away a lightning bolt is.

Therefore to lead off this task, on the next rainy evening, find a secure area and watch for flashes of lightning. As soon the a bolt of lightning sparks up the sky, start a stopwatch or manually count the amount of seconds until you pick up the thunder.

Once you have established the seconds between the first strike and the blast of thunder, all you have to do to gauge the distance is divide the seconds by 5. For illustration, if you make out a lightning bolt then pick up the roar of thunder nine seconds later, you would gauge that the original lightning strike is 1.8 miles from you. We determined this number by dividing 9 by 5, which equates to 1.8.

Here is another one: How far would a lightning strike be if you hear thunder 21 seconds after the first charge of lightning? To find out, just take the amount of seconds, 21, and divide it by five. The solution is 4.2, so the lightning must be around 4.2 miles from where you are watching it.

You should realize that there are times when this method will be inaccurate. Sometimes, the lightning you watch and thunder you hear do not necessarily go with each other. But Then, it could be coming from a different bolt than the one you saw.Not all bolts of lighting meet the ground, so there are times when you will pick up thunder that looks to go with no lightning at all.

When following bad weather, safety should be a main concern. Stay clear of metal objects, electrical appliances, and tall things like trees and light posts.

You do not need to be a professional meteorologist to decide how far lightning is away and have fun observing the weather. So grab a stop watch, find a satisfactory area to view the storm, and have some fun determining how far lightning is away.

by: Simon Ellers

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