is thunder the sound of lightning moving through the air, or of lightning hitting the ground?
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Thunder is the sound of air hitting itself. Lightning ionizes air, making it conduct better, and then surges a huge electric current through the ionized air. This current heats the gas to a high temperature. The temperature causes the air to expand. As it expands, it cools because the air around it is cool. Once it cools down, there is cylinder of very low air pressure, where the lightning used to be. The air collapses into this “vacuum”, and when it smacks into the air from the other side of the cylinder it creates sound waves we hear as thunder.
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