Field recording of a thunderstorm over Stockton-on-Tees, England, UK,
starting at approximately 1545 BST on Thursday, 14 September, 2006. At
least two instances of thunder have a distinct click sound just before them;
each click is the lightning flash (inducing electro-magnetic noise into the
recording equipment). Only powerful and/or nearby lightning does that;
using a well-known formula you can time the period between a click and the
thunderclap immediately following it to see how far away the strike was.
The closest and most powerful strike in this recording I estimated to hit a
neighbouring housing estate with just a narrow green belt of land between me
and it. Looking in the next day's local paper, a house that close was,
indeed, hit. See if you can work out how far away the strike was. Here's a
link to the story in the local paper:
http://evening.gazette.vlex.co.uk/vid/lightning-hit-twice-71835851
('Lightning Hit Twice'; this isn't a good link -- it's a third-party news
archive site -- I'm looking for a better one. There is just enough preview
of the story to show another area hit by one of the major strikes: Thornaby
(woke my friend up there!).) (BTW, LOL, thought there might be some thunder
today, and... it's just come over *black* here just now and is thundering!)
