Why do we hear thunder rumble for quite a while after the initial boom or crack. When you hear sounds from other loud things like fire works, gun shots, car crash, something heavy falling, etc.. the sound hits you and is then gone almost instantly, why does thunder continue to rumble for so long?
In: Physics
1. Sound bounces
2. Sound travelers outward in a sphere, so the sound you hear first is the initial boom, but there’s still the rest of the sphere that bounces around off of things, meaning you’ll hear the other bits later.
Lightning is not a point source of sound like an explosion, it is more of a linear source. So the first sound you hear is the part of the sound wave that reaches your ear first, generated from the closest point to you on the linear path of the lightning. That is followed by all of the sound generated at points further from you on the path of the lightning, which have taken longer to reach you.
In addition to that, thunder is going to echo, so you are going to hear reflections of the initial thunderclap mixed in with the sound taking longer to reach you.
Light travels faster than sound, you see it a couple of miles away, so the light gets to you before the sound does and it bounces around on it’s way to you
Same reason why large explosions from a big distance are seen before they are heard and rumble, huge volcanos which have gone off have recorded the soundwave going all the way round the planet and reaching back up at the start
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