[Bazmundo]

Hazarding a guess, I'd say the 'click' was the air tube of the strike forming to then allow the discharge through, with the thunderclap being the air slapping back into place afterward (the roll of the thunder is the echo) - maybe?

[PaulKn]

The click is almost certainly the shock-wave caused by the lightning - the initial shock wave would be travelling faster than the speed of sound. Alternatively, it could be some kind of EM pulse - sometimes people with glasses have said they've heard this, and it could be the high magnetic fields inducing a brief charge in the glasses - perhaps it does it in the head too!

[Bazmundo]

Ooh, good idea, but wouldn't an EM field inducing an arc (or current) in someone's glasses do the same for every metallic thing within the same area. So you'd get more of a crackle, plus if you had fillings you'd be in agony! It's possibly also the damage it's doing to whatever it strikes, as such you'd hear the crack of say, a nearby tree exploding, before you got the thunderclap?

[Dave W]

Surely you would get the noise of the thunder slightly earlier or together with the damage ?

[Bazmundo]

Well, we're talking fractions of a second if you were close. At a distance of less than a mile I'd say that you'd still hear any noise from strike damage. So in sequence you'd get a click/crack from the connection and air breakdown, along with a noise from the damage, and the clap of thunder would be after the final discharge (assuming there aren't several strikes) as the air fell back into place. That's working on the basis that you have one strike with a duration of about 1/2s. When you get a very close strike, you get the noise from the air breakdown all the way down, like a shrieking crackle. When you have a distant strike you don't hear the air breakdown or the thunderclap, but you get the lower frequency roll of thunder.

I think...

[PaulKn]

I think the initial split/cracking noise is the shock wave, following by the more usual rumbling sound. If you're close enough to experience the shock wave, you're within a few hundred metres, and should be in a place of shelter!

[Nigel Bolton]

Interestingly, I have only ever been indoors when I have heard 'clicks'. The storms that spring to mind were 2nd July 2006 here in Tiverton, in my own home, also 9th May 1988 and 24th May 1989 (the Farnborough storm), the latter two storms watched from the top floor of a tall building in Berkshire.

During the storm of 24th June 1994 heard a loud 'pop' that seemed to emanate from the electricity socket in the room I was in, and was loud enough to make me jump. During this storm, there were many very close strikes, the a hundred metres up the road had its roof set on fire, and the burgler alarms on my parent's house and here two neighbours were deactivated. Also saw lightning hit a step down transformer, twice in 10 seconds or so, the first strike knocking the power out for 2 seconds, the second for two hours.

N.

[PaulKn]

Ah, May 24th 1989 - what a beast! I was at school in Bracknell, and watched all 5 1/2 hours of that thing! Amazing!

[Dave W]

Yes, Waters & Collier wrote a paper about that storm (The Farnborough Storm - evidence of a microburst) suggesting radar/ satellite and ground-based sources suggested good evidence for the occurrence of a microburst during the severe thunderstorm at Farnborough on 24 May 1989.

[clippo]

OK I've got one too..... back in the mid 80's we had a violent thunderstorm during the summer where I lived (Kingsley, nr Delamere Forest, Cheshire).

During the storm we had hailstones the size of malteasers (that punched holes in our corregated plastic outhouse roof) and much of the village was flooded.

There was lots of thunder and lighting too - infact while we were watching the storm across a small valley from our back window when there was a close strike from a bolt of forked lighting. The interesting thing was that just after the strike (I'm talking a second or two) slightly further to the left of the strike and high in the sky, what I can only describe as a 'flare' fell out of the sky. It was quite a while ago but I distinctly remember it fell straight down and seemed to be a glowing red object with a smoke trail behind it.

Thinking about it now, I wonder if it could have been a large bird that had been struck.. I suppose it could actually have been someone setting off a flare too.

[Les]

HI There,
I remember reading somewhere that witnesses to nuclear bomb tests sometimes heard a click just as the bombs detonated ,even before the shockwaves or soundwaves have had a chance to start from the epicentre.
Regards Les.

[Tony Gilbert]

May 2000, after dark witnessed what I can only describe as some type of ball lightning in Lubbock, Texas. Severe thunderstorm nearby and then noticed a spherical bright white light taking an arcing path much like you would expect a cannon ball to do as it loses momentum. The object was silent and seemed to emit small sparks from the circumference. Lasted no more than a second and appeared from thin air moving upward at around 45 degrees from the ground and then disappeared at around a 45 deg angle toward the ground. My partner at the time was looking down and missed the whole event.

Always hard to get others to believe what you saw. But I am in no doubt as it was crystal clear to me.

[Dave W]

Could it have been current travelling up cable ?

[anvilhead]

a few oddities from me -

1) I've seen an intense strobing a couple of times in my life - on both occasions storms were forecast but nothing materialised overhead, it had that irregular random timing of lightning, and was definately being caused by something above ground level - the frequency of the flashes though mad it hard to believe this was a cell, and on one occasion it suddenly stopped. Probably not worth mentioning as these are the sort of expierences you can attribute to another cause even without a more detailed account, but I just wondered if anyone else has seen this

2)I saw a superb night of lightning in Nice, August, a few years ago - what was fascinating though was that the rain would actualy follow the passage of a cell and iirc fall after it had passed!, so they must have been incredibly high based - rather strange. I also watched a very interesting cell far out to sea at the same time that seemed to be rooted in the boundary layer and this was kicking out an incredible amount of cg's from the its base -

3)I remember in the late 80's a perfectly formed high level storm, moving from north to south, which resembled a bowl absolutely full of lightning, but it was so high and rainless we all stood in the playground at school in awe ..

[justinflavin]

i witnessed a meteotsunami rollcloud while holidaying in Menorca a few years ago.

i opened a thread and posted photos over here:
http://www.ukweather...highlightmode=1

[sherrie]

I was sat on my grandparents wall at the front of their house as a child, my brother and cousin were there too, thunder had been rumbling in the far distance, it was so far away we werent bothered about being out side. Behind us was a very small front garden and a shrub under the window and a drain pipe, we all saw what we thought at the time was lightening coming from the shrub, it was followed by the most amazingly loud bang, the lightening had hit a lightening conductor on the roof of a building at the bottom of my grandparents back garden. It was only as an adult I was watching a weather program and realised we had actualy seen a leader coming from the shrub and that we were all very lucky to still be alive. It made me realise that even if thunder seems a long way off you still never know!

[Englishgent]

As you will no doubt know by now, I get some pretty good thunderstorms here in Bangkok and on a number of occasions with storms overhead I have heard a whining sound as the lightning strikes. Its as if you can hear the lightning travelling through the air. I can descibe it as exactly the same sound you hear when at an air show if a powerful military jet flies towards you at speed you hear that whining sound prior to hearing the actual roar of the jet as it flies overhead. I have never heard the clicks, as mentioned in other reports above, but on a couple of very close strikes I have heard crackling and at the same time felt a tingling sensation on my skin. ( I remember thinking at the time,,,,''hmmm,,,that was close'' :) )

[Englishgent]

I forgot to mention above. After the very close strikes there was a definite aroma in the air which lasted a couple of minutes. Hard to describe but was not an electrical smell, i.e. like you get when electrical wires burn out. It was quite a pleasant fresh sort of smell.

[lakes10]

been looking for a thread to ask this in, in June we have a very bad storm at 3:15 pm, I was standing on a playground picking my daughter up from school, theres two of the loudest thunder claps I have ever heard. The starnge part was that it was red lightning. I have never seen red before.

Is this due to the heat from it or dust or something?

oh it also took the power out for most of stanford le hope and Corringham.