Lightning Travels At What Speed at Larissa Morning blog

Lightning Travels At What Speed. Its speed is still pretty close to 186,000 mph (~3 x 10 8 m/s), no matter where you are on earth. The bottom tip of a lightning bolt traveling from a cloud to the ground does travel rather quickly, although it travels at much less. Air slightly slows down light, but only about 56 mi/s or 90 km/s. The reason it works is that light from lightning travels much faster through air than the sound of thunder. The surrounding air is rapidly heated, causing it to expand violently at a rate faster than the speed of sound, similar to a sonic boom. At about 10 m out from the channel, it becomes an ordinary sound wave called thunder. 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. The return stroke travels incredibly fast:

The reason it works is that light from lightning travels much faster through air than the sound of thunder. The surrounding air is rapidly heated, causing it to expand violently at a rate faster than the speed of sound, similar to a sonic boom. At about 10 m out from the channel, it becomes an ordinary sound wave called thunder. Its speed is still pretty close to 186,000 mph (~3 x 10 8 m/s), no matter where you are on earth. The bottom tip of a lightning bolt traveling from a cloud to the ground does travel rather quickly, although it travels at much less. 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. Air slightly slows down light, but only about 56 mi/s or 90 km/s. The return stroke travels incredibly fast:

Lightning Strike

Lightning Travels At What Speed Air slightly slows down light, but only about 56 mi/s or 90 km/s. Air slightly slows down light, but only about 56 mi/s or 90 km/s. The return stroke travels incredibly fast: Its speed is still pretty close to 186,000 mph (~3 x 10 8 m/s), no matter where you are on earth. The bottom tip of a lightning bolt traveling from a cloud to the ground does travel rather quickly, although it travels at much less. 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. The reason it works is that light from lightning travels much faster through air than the sound of thunder. The surrounding air is rapidly heated, causing it to expand violently at a rate faster than the speed of sound, similar to a sonic boom. At about 10 m out from the channel, it becomes an ordinary sound wave called thunder.