The distance to a lightning strike is the number of seconds between the flash and the thunder divided by three, in kilometres, because sound is far slower than light. The warmer and moister the air, the more easily a rising parcel passes its dew point: cumulus stacks into towering cumulonimbus and the storm breaks. A cyclone drops the central pressure deep and spirals air inward anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, while an inversion traps smoke and dust in a shallow, polluted layer near the ground.
The distance to a lightning strike is the number of seconds between the flash and the thunder divided by three, in kilometres, because sound is far slower than light. The warmer and moister the air, the more easily a rising parcel passes its dew point: cumulus stacks into towering cumulonimbus and the storm breaks. A cyclone drops the central pressure deep and spirals air inward anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, while an inversion traps smoke and dust in a shallow, polluted layer near the ground.
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