Hi there! I decided to do thunderstorms for my weekly research and I thought that this time of year would be perfect. I’d like to thank my mother Camilla for making this possible.

A thunderstorm is a storm with lightning and thunder. It is produced by a cumulonimbus cloud, usually producing gusty winds, heavy rain and sometimes hail but not always in the Western USA. The basic ingredients used to make a thunderstorm are moisture, unstable air and lift.

The earth needs moisture to form clouds and rain. You need unstable air that is relatively warm and can rise rapidly. Finally, you need lift.

The lift can form from fronts, sea breezes or mountains. Thunderstorms can occur year-round and at all hours. But they are most likely to happen in the spring and summer months and during the afternoon and evening hours.

Some people estimated that there are around 1,800 thunderstorms that occur across our planet every day. All thunderstorms are dangerous. Every thunderstorm produces lightning, which kills more people each year than tornadoes.

Thunder is the sound caused by lightning. The intense heat from lightning causes the surrounding air to rapidly expand and create a sonic wave that you hear as thunder. The average temperature of lightning is around 20000°C (36000°F).

The sound of thunder can be anything from a loud crack to a low rumble. Light travels faster than sound so we see lightning before we hear thunder. The closer you live, the shorter the gap between the lightning and thunder.

The speed of sound is around 767 miles per hour (1,230 kilometres per hour). The speed of light is around 669600000 miles per hour (1080000000 kilometres per hour). Thunder is difficult to hear at distances over 12 miles (20 kilometres).

Thousands of years ago, philosophers such as Aristotle believed that thunder was caused by the collision of clouds. Astraphobia is the fear of thunder and lightning. The Oklahoma basketball team that play in the National Basketball Association (NBA) are called the Thunder.

I got this photo at https://www.top10spy.com/wp-content/uploads/Thunderstorms-Ever-Recorded.jpg but I actually found it on Google Images.

Sources I Used:

https://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-thunderstorms

https://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/weather/thunder.html

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