[Lee Stewart]

Most people talk about thunder and lightning as if they are two separate things, but in fact, they are just two features of the same phenomenon: Thunder is the sound of lighting. In other words, thunder is the noise created as air expands and contracts rapidly in the lightning’s resonating tube (which one professor calls a “tubular drum“).

Part of the reason some people separate thunder and lightning is that it’s possible to hear thunder from as far as 10 miles away from the lightning that caused it. Just because you don’t see the lightning doesn’t mean it’s not there.